COMBING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Combing

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/kˈoʊmɪŋ/ Listen

noun

Combing n.

The act or process of using a comb or a number of combs; as, the combing of one's hair; the combing of wool. Note: The process of combing is used in straightening wool of long staple; short wool is carded.

pl.

(a)

That which is caught or collected with a comb, as loose, tangled hair.

(b)

Hair arranged to be worn on the head. "The baldness, thinness, and... deformity of their hair is supplied by borders and combings."

(c)

(Naut.) See Coamings.

Combing machine (Textile Manuf.), a machine for combing wool, flax, cotton, etc., and separating the longer and more valuable fiber from the shorter. See also Carding machine, under Carding.

verb

Comb v. t. (past & past part. combed; pres. part. combing) To disentangle, cleanse, or adjust, with a comb; to lay smooth and straight with, or as with, a comb; as, to comb hair or wool. See under Combing. "Comb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright."

Comb v. i. (Naut.) To roll over, as the top or crest of a wave; to break with a white foam, as waves.

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Etymology of 'Combing'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Combing" Quotes from Famous Books

... in shore that the danger is worst; for the tide, here running like a mill race, makes a long belt of broken water—a Roost we call it—at the tail of the land. I have often been out there in a dead calm at the slack of the tide; and a strange place it is, with the sea swirling and combing up and boiling like the cauldrons of a linn, and now and again a little dancing mutter of sound as though the Roost were talking to itself. But when the tide begins to run again, and above all in ...

— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... comed back. Man was to the Red Bull, I count. Female a-washing and a-combing of herself ...

— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... Harry's daughter. Now hand your partners all! The Queen was in her chamber, a-combing of her hair. There came Queen Mary's spirit and It stood behind her chair. Singing, 'Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass, But I will stand behind you till you face the looking-glass. The cruel ...

— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... The dizzy whirl of the current and the jolting motion of the waves so terrified him that he dropped his paddle and clutched the combing with both hands. Then, as the bushes directly ahead caught his eye, he threw up his arms ...

— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... humming-bird I have seen: she alighted, and rested frequently and for long periods. Droll enough it looked to see such an atom, such a mere pinch of feathers, conduct herself after the fashion of a big bird; to see her wipe that needle-like beak, and dress those infinitesimal feathers, combing out her head plumage with her minute black claws, running the same useful appendages through her long, gauzy-looking wings, and carefully removing the yellow pollen of the honeysuckle blooms which stuck to her face and throat. ...

— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

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