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What is the difference between brush and scrub?

brush | scrub |

As nouns the difference between brush and scrub

is that 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 while scrub is one who labors hard and lives meanly; a mean fellow.

As verbs the difference between brush and scrub

is that brush is to clean with a brush while scrub is to rub hard; to wash with rubbing; usually, to rub with a wet brush, or with something coarse or rough, for the purpose of cleaning or brightening; as, to scrub a floor, a doorplate.

As an adjective scrub is

mean; dirty; contemptible; scrubby.

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

    scrub

    English

    Etymology 1

    (en)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Mean; dirty; contemptible; scrubby.
  • * (rfdate)'' (Walpole)
  • How solitary, how scrub, does this town look!
  • * (rfdate), (Jonathan Swift)
  • No little scrub joint shall come on my board.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • One who labors hard and lives meanly; a mean fellow.
  • * John Bunyan, A Pilgrim's Promise
  • a sorry scrub
  • * Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield
  • We should go there in as proper a manner possible; nor altogether like the scrubs about us.
  • A worn-out brush.
  • (Ainsworth)
  • One who is incompetent or unable to complete easy tasks.
  • A thicket or jungle, often specified by the name of the prevailing plant; as, oak scrub', palmetto ' scrub , etc.
  • * , chapter=1
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
  • (US, stock breeding) One of the common livestock of a region of no particular breed or not of pure breed, especially when inferior in size, etc. Often used to refer to male animals unsuited for breeding.
  • Vegetation of inferior quality, though sometimes thick and impenetrable, growing in poor soil or in sand; also, brush.
  • One not on the first team of players, a substitute.
  • Derived terms
    * scrubbable * scrub game * scrub race
    Derived terms
    * scrub bird * scrub oak * scrub robin

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl)

    Verb

    (scrubb)
  • To rub hard; to wash with rubbing; usually, to rub with a wet brush, or with something coarse or rough, for the purpose of cleaning or brightening; as, to scrub a floor, a doorplate.
  • To rub anything hard, especially with a wet brush; to scour;
  • (figuratively) To be diligent and penurious; as, to scrub hard for a living.
  • To call off a scheduled event; to cancel.
  • Engineers had to scrub the satellite launch due to bad weather.
  • (databases) To eliminate or to correct data from a set of records to bring it inline with other similar datasets
  • The street segment data from the National Post Office will need to be scrubbed before it can be integrated into our system.
  • (audio) To move a recording tape back and forth with a scrubbing-like motion to produce a scratching sound, or to do so by a similar use of a control on an editing system.
  • (audio, video) To maneuver the play position on a media editing system by using a scroll bar.
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • An instance of scrubbing.
  • A cancellation.
  • A worn-out brush.
  • One who scrubs.
  • (medicine, in the plural) Clothing worn while performing surgery.
  • An exfoliant for the body.
  • Anagrams

    *