Word.ws English Dictionary

fine-tooth combing

fine-tooth combing is the present participle and gerund of fine-tooth comb.

Meaning of fine-tooth comb

Verb

fine-tooth comb (third-person singular simple present fine-tooth combs, present participle fine-tooth combing, simple past and past participle fine-tooth combed)

  1. (dated, transitive) To comb or go through (hair, an animal's fur, etc.) with a comb having fine, closely spaced teeth.
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To search (something or somewhere) meticulously.
    • "There's one other way of discovering the writer,—find a Rem-Smith typewriter with an alignment imperfect in just this way."
      "Yes," said Astro. "We might begin and fine-tooth-comb the city for it.:Template:.."1912, Frank Gelett Burgess, The Master of Mysteries, Mrs. Stellery's Letters

See all 4 meanings of fine-tooth comb

Questions about fine-tooth combing

What is fine-tooth combing the present participle and gerund of?
Fine-tooth combing is the present participle and gerund of fine-tooth comb.

Words near fine-tooth combing in the dictionary

  1. fine-threaded
  2. fine-tooth comb
  3. fine-tooth comb test
  4. fine-tooth comb tests
  5. fine-tooth combed
  6. fine-tooth combing
  7. fine-tooth combs
  8. fine-toothed
  9. fine-toothed comb
  10. fine-toothed combs
  11. fine-tune

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fine-tooth combing (page history and authors); fine-tooth comb (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.

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