Brushing

Part of speech: verb, noun

Pronunciation: /ˈbɹʌʃ.ɪŋ/

Definitions

1. The act of cleaning or grooming by moving a brush over a surface or hair ; the action of lightly touching or passing swiftly against something
2. Using a brush to tidy or cleanse hair, fabric, or a surface ; making brief contact or glancing touches while moving past
3. The process of sweeping or arranging fibers or particles with a brush ; a gentle or rapid touch made by passing near or against an object

Etymology: The noun "brush" began as a word for bristles, not for the tool. Its ancestor, Proto-Germanic "burstiz", meant "bristle", and it passed through Frankish and Vulgar Latin into Old French as "broisse", the source of modern French "brosse". Middle English then borrowed it as "brusshe", and the sense of an implement made of bristles followed. Along the way, the word may have had a second route. Some scholars trace it instead to Vulgar Latin "bruscia", from a Proto-Germanic root "bruskaz" meaning "tuft, thicket, underbrush", which may itself reach back to an older Indo-European base. The two possibilities overlap in meaning, so the bristle sense and the thicket sense both sit behind the modern tool. "Brushing" adds the ordinary English suffix "-ing" to the verb, so its sense of sweeping a brush across something, or passing lightly against it, grows directly out of that original idea of bristly growth.

Synonyms: sweeping, cleaning