- [countable] an object made of short stiff hairs (called bristles) or wires set in a block of wood or plastic, usually attached to a handle. Brushes are used for many different jobs, such as cleaning, painting and tidying your hair.
- a paintbrush
- a hairbrush
- a toothbrush
- brush strokes (= the marks left by a brush when painting)
- a dustpan and brush
- Apply the paint with a fine brush.
Extra ExamplesTopics Houses and homesa2, Arta2- Remove all the rust with a wire brush.
- Scrub the wood thoroughly with water and a stiff brush.
- She ran a brush through her hair.
- She took a can of paint and dipped her brush in it.
- The artist has used tiny brush strokes.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- stiff
- stiff-bristled
- fine
- …
- apply something with
- use
- wield
- …
- stroke
- with a/the brush
- a brush and comb
- a comb and brush
- a dustpan and brush
- …
- [singular] an act of brushing
- to give your teeth a good brush
- [singular] a light touch made in passing something/somebody
- the brush of his lips on her cheek
- [countable] brush with somebody/something a short unfriendly meeting with somebody; an occasion when you nearly experience something unpleasant
- She had a nasty brush with her boss this morning.
- In his job he's had frequent brushes with death.
- a brush with the law
- [uncountable] land covered by small trees or bushes
- a brush fire
- [countable] the tail of a fox
Word Originnoun senses 1 to 4 and noun sense 6 Middle English: noun from Old French broisse; verb partly from Old French brosser ‘to sweep’. noun sense 5 Middle English: from Old French broce, perhaps based on Latin bruscum, denoting an excrescence on a maple.
Idioms
See brush in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionarybe tarred with the same brush (as somebody)
- to be thought to have the same faults, etc. as somebody else
daft as a brush
- (British English, informal) very silly
paint something with a broad brush
- to describe something in a general way, ignoring the details
Check pronunciation:
brush