different between tuft vs comb

English

Etymology

From Middle English tuft, toft, tofte, an alteration of earlier *tuffe (> Modern English tuff), from Old French touffe, tuffe, toffe, tofe (“tuft”) (modern French touffe), from Late Latin tufa (“helmet crest”) (near Vegezio), from Germanic (compare Old English þ?f (“tuft”), Old Norse þúfa (“mound”), Swedish tuva (“tussock; grassy hillock”)), from Proto-Germanic *þ?b? (“tube”), *þ?baz; akin to Latin t?ber (“hump, swelling”), Ancient Greek ????? (t??ph?, “cattail (used to stuff beds)”). Equivalent to tuff.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?ft/
• Rhymes: -?ft

Noun

tuft (plural tufts)

1. A bunch of feathers, grass or hair, etc., held together at the base.
2. A cluster of threads drawn tightly through upholstery, a mattress or a quilt, etc., to secure and strengthen the padding.
3. A small clump of trees or bushes.
4. (historical) A gold tassel on the cap worn by titled undergraduates at English universities.
5. (historical) A person entitled to wear such a tassel.

Derived terms

• tufthunting
• tufthunter

Translations

Verb

tuft (third-person singular simple present tufts, present participle tufting, simple past and past participle tufted)

1. (transitive) To provide or decorate with a tuft or tufts.
2. (transitive) To form into tufts.
3. (transitive) To secure and strengthen (a mattress, quilt, etc.) with tufts.
4. (intransitive) To be formed into tufts.

Translations

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English comb, from Old English camb (“comb”), from Proto-West Germanic *kamb, from Proto-Germanic *kambaz (“comb”), from Proto-Indo-European *?ómb?os (“tooth”), from Proto-Indo-European *?ómb?- (“to pierce, gnaw through”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: k?m, IPA^(key): /k??m/
• (US) enPR: k?m, IPA^(key): /ko?m/
• Rhymes: -??m

Noun

comb (plural combs)

1. A toothed implement for grooming the hair or (formerly) for keeping it in place.

   • There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved, put in curlers overnight, waved with hot tongs; […].

2. A machine used in separating choice cotton fibers from worsted cloth fibers.
3. A fleshy growth on the top of the head of some birds and reptiles; crest.
4. A structure of hexagon cells made by bees for storing honey; honeycomb.
5. An old English measure of corn equal to the half quarter.
6. The top part of a gun’s stock.
7. The toothed plate at the top and bottom of an escalator that prevents objects getting trapped between the moving stairs and fixed landings.
8. (music) The main body of a harmonica containing the air chambers and to which the reed plates are attached.
9. A former, commonly cone-shaped, used in hat manufacturing for hardening soft fibre.
10. A toothed tool used for chasing screws on work in a lathe; a chaser.
11. The notched scale of a wire micrometer.
12. The collector of an electrical machine, usually resembling a comb.
13. One of a pair of peculiar organs on the base of the abdomen in scorpions.
14. The curling crest of a wave; a comber.
15. A toothed plate used for creating wells in agar gels for electrophoresis.
16. (weaving) A toothed wooden pick used to push the weft thread tightly against the previous pass of thread to create a tight weave.
17. (algebraic geometry) A connected and reduced curve with irreducible components consisting of a smooth subcurve (called the handle) and one or more additional irreducible components (called teeth) that each intersect the handle in a single point that is unequal to the unique point of intersection for any of the other teeth.

Synonyms

• (skin on head of birds): cockscomb, crest

Related terms

• kemb
• kempt
• unkempt

Coordinate terms

• (skin on head of birds): caruncle, snood, wattle

Derived terms

Coordinate terms

• orling

Translations

Verb

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

1. (transitive, especially of hair or fur) To groom with a toothed implement; chiefly with a comb.

2. (transitive) To separate choice cotton fibers from worsted cloth fibers.
3. (transitive) To search thoroughly as if raking over an area with a comb.

4. (nautical, intransitive) To roll over, as the top or crest of a wave; to break with a white foam, as waves.

Translations

Etymology 2

From combination.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /k?mb/

Noun

comb (plural combs)

1. (abbreviation) Combination. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Etymology 3

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ku?m/

Noun

comb (plural combs)

1. Alternative form of combe

Anagrams

• BMOC

Hungarian

Etymology

Of unknown origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?t?somb]
• Hyphenation: comb
• Rhymes: -omb

Noun

comb (plural combok)

1. (anatomy) thigh

Declension

Derived terms

• combocska
• combos
• combú

References

Further reading

• comb in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh: A magyar nyelv értelmez? szótára (’The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: ?ISBN
• comb in Ittzés, Nóra (ed.). A magyar nyelv nagyszótára (’A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2006–2031 (work in progress; published A–ez as of 2021)

Middle English

Alternative forms

• combe, kombe, camb, kambe, cambe

Etymology

From Old English camb, comb.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k??mb/, /?k?mb/
• (mainly Northern ME) IPA^(key): /?kamb/, /?ka?mb/

Noun

comb (plural combes)

1. A comb (toothed tool for holding or grooming hair)
2. An instrument similar to a comb used for differing things.
3. A comb or wattle (usually of a rooster)
4. A honeycomb (hexagonal structure of bees)
5. (rare) The top of a mount or rise.
6. (rare) The palm or the analogous part of the foot.

Related terms

• hony combe
• horscomb
• kemben

Descendants

• English: comb
• Scots: camb, came, kame, kaim, kem
• Yola: cowm, khime

References

• “c?mb, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-10-31.

Old English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /komb/

Noun

comb m

1. Alternative form of camb