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What is the difference between broom and brush?

broom | brush |

As nouns the difference between broom and brush

is that broom is a domestic utensil with fibers bound together at the end of a long handle, used for sweeping while brush is an implement consisting of multiple more or less flexible bristles or other filaments attached to a handle, used for any of various purposes including cleaning, painting, and arranging hair.

As verbs the difference between broom and brush

is that broom is to sweep while brush is to clean with a brush.

As a proper noun Broom

is {{surname|lang=en}.

broom

English

(wikipedia broom)

Etymology 1

(etyl), from (etyl) ‘edge’. Related to (l), (l).

Noun

  • (label) A domestic utensil with fibers bound together at the end of a long handle, used for sweeping.
  • (countable, curling) An implement with which players sweep the ice to make a stone travel further and curl less; a sweeper.
  • Any of several yellow-flowered shrubs of the family Fabaceae, in the genera , with long, thin branches and small or few leaves.
  • * 1610 , , by (William Shakespeare), act 4 scene 1:
  • and thy broom groves,
    Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,
    Being lass-lorn
    Derived terms
    * a new broom sweeps clean * broom wagon * broomstick * brooming * pushbroom / push broom / push-broom * whiskbroom

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (intransitive) To sweep.
  • * 1855 September 29, , "Model Officials", in Household Words: A Weekly Journal , Bradbury and Evens (1856), page 206:
  • “[…] Sidi, I was busy in the exercise of my functions, occupied in brooming the front of the stables, when who should come but Hhamed Ould Denéï on horseback, at full gallop, as if he were going to break his neck. […]”
  • * , Our Street'', in ''Christmas Books: Mrs. Perkins's Ball, Our Street, Dr. Birch'', Chapman & Hall (1857), ''Our Street page 8:
  • It was but this morning at eight, when poor Molly, was brooming the steps, and the baker paying her by no means unmerited compliments, that my landlady came whirling out of the ground-floor front, and sent the poor girl whimpering into the kitchen.
  • * Opal Stanley Whiteley, The Story of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart , Atlantic Monthly Press (1920), pages 58–59:
  • After that I did take the broom from its place, and I gave the floor a good brooming'. I ' broomed the boards up and down and cross-ways. There was not a speck of dirt on them left.
  • * 1997 , Will Hobbs, Far North (HarperCollins, ISBN 0380725363), page 100:
  • We broomed the dirt floor clean with spruce branches, brought our gear inside, and moved in.
    Quotations
    *

    Etymology 2

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (nautical) (gloss, to clean a ship's bottom)
  • References

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    brush

    English

    Noun

    (es)
  • An implement consisting of multiple more or less flexible bristles or other filaments attached to a handle, used for any of various purposes including cleaning, painting, and arranging hair.
  • A piece of conductive material, usually carbon, serving to maintain electrical contact between the stationary and rotating parts of a machine.
  • The act of brushing something.
  • :
  • *(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • *:[As leaves] have with one winter's brush / Fell from their boughs.
  • (lb) Wild vegetation, generally larger than grass but smaller than trees ().
  • *1906 , Jack London, :
  • *:We broke away]] toward the north, the tribe howling on our track. Across the open spaces we gained, and in the brush they [[catch up, caught up with us, and more than once it was nip and tuck.
  • *{{quote-book, year=2006, author=(Edwin Black)
  • , chapter=2, title= Internal Combustion , passage=One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn. Fifty such kilns would devour six thousand metric tons of trees and brush annually.}}
  • A short and sometimes occasional encounter or experience.
  • :
  • *2013 , Russell Brand, Russell Brand and the GQ awards: 'It's amazing how absurd it seems''', ''The Guardian , 13 September:
  • *:The usual visual grammar was in place – a carpet in the street, people in paddocks awaiting a brush with something glamorous, blokes with earpieces, birds in frocks of colliding colours that if sighted in nature would indicate the presence of poison.
  • The furry tail of an animal, especially of a fox.
  • *
  • *:They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so perfect. And why else was he put away up there out of sight?—and so magnificent a brush as he had too.
  • (lb) A tuft of hair on the mandibles.
  • (lb) A short contest, or trial, of speed.
  • *Cornhill Magazine
  • *:Let us enjoy a brush across the country.
  • (lb) An instrument, resembling a brush, used to produce a soft sound from drums or cymbals.
  • (lb) An on-screen tool for "painting" a particular colour or texture.
  • *2007 , Lee Lanier, Maya Professional Tips and Techniques , p.12:
  • *:Your bitmap image appears along the painted stroke. If you'd like to permanently create a custom sprite brush , it's fairly easy to adapt an existing MEL file.
  • (lb) In 3D video games, a convex polyhedron, especially one that defines structure of the play area.
  • The floorperson of a poker room, usually in a casino.
  • (North Wisconsin, uncountable) Evergreen boughs, especially balsam, locally cut and baled for export, usually for use in wreathmaking.
  • Verb

  • To clean with a brush.
  • Brush your teeth.
  • To untangle or arrange with a brush.
  • Brush your hair.
  • To apply with a brush.
  • Brush the paint onto the walls.
  • To remove with a sweeping motion.
  • Brush the flour off your clothes.
  • * Shakespeare
  • As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed / With raven's feather from unwholesome fen.
  • To touch with a sweeping motion, or lightly in passing.
  • Her scarf brushed his skin.
  • * Fairfax
  • Some spread their sails, some with strong oars sweep / The waters smooth, and brush the buxom wave.
  • * Milton
  • Brushed with the kiss of rustling wings.
  • * 1990 October 28, , Warner Bros.
  • Maybe you will find a love that you discover accidentally, who falls against you gently as a pickpocket brushes your thigh.

    Derived terms

    * as daft as a brush * bottle brush, bottlebrush * bristle brush * broad brush * brush aside * brush back, brushback * brush by * brush cut * brush down * brushed * brushless * brushmaker * brush off * brushfire * brush-off * brushtail * brushy * clothesbrush, clothes brush * hairbrush * live over the brush * paintbrush * paint with a broad brush * scrub brush, scrubbing brush * shaving brush * shoe brush * toothbrush * underbrush * wire brush

    See also

    * broom * comb

    Anagrams

    * shrub 1000 English basic words