brushes

Noun

brush (countable and uncountable, plural brushes)

1. 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.
2. The act of brushing something.
   • She gave her hair a quick brush.
3. A piece of conductive material, usually carbon, serving to maintain electrical contact between the stationary and rotating parts of a machine.
4. A brush-like electrical discharge of sparks.
   • If there was a sharp point nearby, electricity would stream from it in a luminous brush, a little corposant, and one could blow out candles with the outstreaming “electric wind,” or even get this to turn a little rotor on its pivot.2001, Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood

   Synonyms:

   corposant

5. (uncountable) Wild vegetation, generally larger than grass but smaller than trees. See shrubland.
   • We broke away toward the north, the tribe howling on our track. Across the open spaces we gained, and in the brush they caught up with us, and more than once it was nip and tuck.1906, Jack London, Before Adam, chapter 12
6. A short, possibly recurrent encounter or experience.
   • brush with death

See all 22 meanings of brush