| / English Dictionary |
BRUSHING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of brushing your hair
Example:
he gave his hair a quick brush
Synonyms:
brush; brushing
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("brushing" is a kind of...):
hair care; haircare; hairdressing (care for the hair: the activity of washing or cutting or curling or arranging the hair)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The act of brushing your teeth
Example:
the dentist recommended two brushes a day
Synonyms:
brush; brushing
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("brushing" is a kind of...):
dental care (care for the teeth)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb brush
Context examples:
A bronchial brushing is used to find cancer and changes in cells that may lead to cancer.
(Bronchial brushing, NCI Dictionary)
The scientists applied various stimuli to the hairy skin of mice cheeks, including gentle mechanical stimuli (air puff, stroking, and brushing), high-threshold mechanical stimuli (hair pulling and skin pinching), and temperature stimulation.
(Study uncovers specialized mouse neurons that play a unique role in pain, National Institutes of Health)
She was living in bad society, and imaginary though it was, its influence affected her, for she was feeding heart and fancy on dangerous and unsubstantial food, and was fast brushing the innocent bloom from her nature by a premature acquaintance with the darker side of life, which comes soon enough to all of us.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
The Movement Disorder Society version of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) Over the past week, have you usually been slow or do you need help with washing, bathing, shaving, brushing teeth, combing your hair or with other personal hygiene?
(MDS-UPDRS - Hygiene, NCI Thesaurus)
Three women were got to help; and such scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets, such taking down and putting up of pictures, such polishing of mirrors and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, such airing of sheets and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Also called bronchial brushing.
(Bronchial brush biopsy, NCI Dictionary)
Excellent fellow as I knew Traddles to be, and warmly attached to him as I was, I could not help wishing, on that delicate occasion, that he had never contracted the habit of brushing his hair so very upright.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
His hand was sweeping nervously across his face, as though he were brushing away cobwebs.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
A new study has identified a link between brushing teeth and preventing heart attacks.
(Frequently brushing teeth may help prevent heart attacks, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
Brain scans showed different activity patterns in response to brushing between unaffected volunteers and the patient who felt prickliness.
(“Sixth sense” may be more than just a feeling, NIH)
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