Word.ws English Dictionary

brushing

/ˈbɹʌʃ.ɪŋ/

brushing is the present participle and gerund of brush.

Noun

brushing (countable and uncountable, plural brushings)

  1. An instance of brushing.
    • Give your shoes a brushing to get the mud off.
  2. Material removed by brushing.
  3. (Internet, uncountable) A fraudulent technique in which an online seller sends out fake orders (such as empty boxes) and contributes positive reviews about those orders, ostensibly from the recipient.

Meaning of brush

Verb

brush (third-person singular simple present brushes, present participle brushing, simple past and past participle brushed)

  1. (transitive) To clean with a brush.
    • Brush your teeth.
  2. (transitive) To untangle or arrange with a brush.
    • Brush your hair.
  3. (transitive) To apply with a brush.
    • I am brushing the paint onto the walls.
  4. (transitive) To remove with a sweeping motion.
    • She brushed the flour off my clothes.
  5. (ambitransitive) To touch with a sweeping motion, or lightly in passing.
    • Her scarf brushed his skin.
  6. (intransitive) To clean one's teeth by brushing them.
    • Of course, Halloween does not have to be completely treatless. Plain chocolate candy is okay, provided you remember to brush afterwards.2000, USA Today, volume 129, numbers 2662-2673, page 92

See all 22 meanings of brush

Adjective

brushing (comparative more brushing, superlative most brushing)

  1. (dated) Brisk; light.
    • a brushing gallop

Forms of brushing

Noun
pluralbrushings
Adjective
comparativemore brushing
superlativemost brushing

Words formed from brushing

Phrases with brushing

4 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with brushing

Questions about brushing

What does brushing mean?
Brushing means an instance of brushing.
What is brushing the present participle and gerund of?
Brushing is the present participle and gerund of brush.
What part of speech is brushing?
Brushing can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce brushing?
Brushing is pronounced /ˈbɹʌʃ.ɪŋ/.
What is the plural of brushing?
The plural of brushing is brushings.

Words near brushing in the dictionary

  1. brushholly
  2. brushier
  3. brushiest
  4. brushily
  5. brushiness
  6. brushing
  7. brushing aside
  8. brushing away
  9. brushing back
  10. brushing by
  11. brushing down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brushing (page history and authors); brush (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-brushing.wav.

Cite this entry: “brushing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brushing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.