Forms: 4–6 brusshe, 5 brusch(e, 7 brish, 6– brush. [ME. brusshe, a. OF. brosse, broisse, identified by most French etymologists with brosse brushwood (see BRUSH sb.1), the sense being supposed to be derived through that of ‘bunch of broom or other shrub used to sweep away dust’: cf. BROOM. But the history of the French words has not been satisfactorily made out: cf. MHG. bürste fem. ‘brush,’ from borste bristle, and see Diez, Littré, Scheler, Brachet.]
1. A utensil consisting of a piece of wood or other suitable material, set with small tufts or bunches of bristles, hair, or the like, for sweeping or scrubbing dust and dirt from a surface; and generally any utensil for brushing or sweeping.
Brushes are of many shapes and of various materials according to use; instead of bristles there may be slender wires, vegetable fibers, feathers, etc. They are named according to their use, as clothes-brush, hat-brush, shoe-brush, blacking-brush, hair-brush, nail-brush, tooth-brush, etc. A hard brush has stiff bristles; a soft brush fine and flexible bristles. The chimney-sweep’s brush and dust brush pass into a besom.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XIV. 460. Whi he ne hadde wasshen it [a coat] or wyped it with a brusshe.
1485. Inv., in Ripon Ch. Acts, 369. Unum brusshe, 2d.
1519. Horman, Vulg., 115. Olde men brusshed they dustye clothes with cowe tayles: as we do with hear brusshes.
1530. Palsgr., 182. Vnes decrottoyres, a rubbynge brusshe to make clene clothes with.
a. 1598. Hakluyt, Voy., I. 363 (R.). 100 brushes for garments (none made of swine haire).
1609. C. Butler, Fem. Mon., v. Move the cluster [of bees] gently with your brush, and drive them in. The Brush is a handfull of Rosemary, Hyssop, Fennell, or other herbes; of Hazell, Withie, Plum-tree, or other boughs; or rather of boughes with hearbs, bound taper-wise together.
1619. in Pitcairn’s Crim. Trials, III. 478. Ane kame-caise, with ane brusch, with certane other necessaris.
1758. Johnson, Idler, No. 5, ¶ 11. If a coat be spotted, a lady has a brush.
1873. Black, Pr. Thule, xvii. 275. You want a hard brush to brush sunlight off a wall.
2. An instrument consisting of a bunch of hairs attached to a straight handle, for applying moisture to a surface, moist colors in painting, coloring, and similar purposes.
These also vary greatly in size, from a small brush composed of a few fine elastic hairs of the sable, etc., fixed in a fine quill, to the large and coarse brushes of the house painter or plasterer (some of which have the hairs in distinct bunches).
1483. Cath. Angl., 46. A Brusch for paynterys, celeps.
1677. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), 249. Brishes, of three sorts, viz. A Stock Brish, a Round Brish, and a Pencil. With these Brishes, they wet old Walls before they mend them.
1703. Arts Improv., I. 63. Take a fine Hogs-Hair-Brush; with this, job and beat over your Work gently, that the Gold may be pressed in close.
1792. Gentl. Mag., April, 328. Rub it over all the joints … with a painter’s brush.
1804. Huddesford, Wiccam. Chaplet, 136. No painter that’s living can handle a brush!
1859. Gullick & Timbs, Paint., 295. Brushes of brown sable are generally made by the insertion of the hair into quills; hence the size of the brush is recognised by the various names of the birds which supply the quills employed—as eagle, swan (of various sizes), goose, duck, and crow. Ibid. The smaller kinds of brushes are still sometimes termed ‘pencils.’
b. The painter’s art painter’s art or professional skill. Brother of the brush: artist.
1687. Bp. Cartwright, in Hist. Magd. Coll. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), 143. Pray make use of my Brother of the Brush.
1759. Sterne, Tr. Shandy (1793), I. 133. The honourable devices which the Pentagraphic Bretheren of the brush have shewn in taking copies.
1789. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Subj. for Paint., Wks. 1812, II. 136. The world ne’er said nor thought it of thy Brush.
1833. Byron’s Wks. (1846), 585/1. A young American brother of the brush.
1836. Praed, Poems, Sk. Yng. Lady. If I to-morrow Could manage just for half-an-hour Sir Joshua’s brush to borrow.
Mod. There is another picture from the same brush.
3. Any brush-like bunch or tuft.
a. generally.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 258 b. Thys vayneglorious proud pecocke is bedeckt with … glittering plumes, wrapt up together in a great brush.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 473. Equisetum arvense … the barren stem terminates in an abrupt brush of branches.
b. The bushy tail, or bushy part of the tail, of an animal; spec. that of the fox.
1675. [see 10].
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Brush … a Fox’s Tail.
1735. Somerville, Chase, III. 145. His Brush he drags, And sweeps the Mire impure.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., II. 190. His [the fox’s] tail is called his brush or drag.
1784. Cowper, Task, VI. 317. The squirrel, flippant … whisks his brush.
1860. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., III. cxxxix. 114. If the landed interest took the same courses in fox-hunting, it would be easy to foretell how many brushes they would bring home.
1883. J. Mackenzie, Day-dawn in Dark Places, 162. I tied the brush of the tail [of the gemsbuck] to Bluebuck’s saddle.
4. Entom. A brush-like organ on the legs of bees and other insects.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., II. 201. Tarsi short, with no brush beneath.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. III. 208. The legs of the Bee … have the first joint of the tarsus dilated…. Its inner surface is provided with several rows of stiff hairs placed transversely, which gives to this part the name of the ‘brush.’
5. Metallic brush: ‘a bundle of fine wires fixed in an insulating handle. Used for faradisation of less sensitive parts in anæsthetic conditions’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.); also a wire hair-brush.
6. Electricity. a. A brush-like discharge of sparks. b. A piece of metal terminating in metallic wires, or strips of flexible metal, used for securing good metallic connection between two portions of an electrical instrument.
1789. Nicholson, in Phil. Trans., LXXIX. 275. When the intensity was greatest, brushes, of a different kind from the former, appeared.
1803. Med. & Phys. Jrnl., IX. 390. Somewhat like a little brush deflagration.
1842. W. Grove, Corr. Phys. Forces (ed. 6), 75. The electric spark, the brush, and similar phenomena.
c. 1865. J. Wylde, in Circ. Sc., I. 174/2. When any pointed object is presented to an electrised surface, the spark … becomes converted into a brush-like form; hence the term ‘electric brush.’
1883. Knowledge, 13 July, 24/2. One of the brushes of the commutator presses the insulating piece.
7. Optics. Bright or dark figures accompanying certain phenomena observed in polarized light, which by their shaded and ill-defined edges combined with variations of breadth suggest the idea of brushes.
1817–45. Herschel, Light, in Encycl. Metrop., 559.
1857. Lloyd, Wave Theory Light, 193. The dark brushes, which cross the entire system of rings. Ibid., 122. Haidinger brushes … two brushes, of a pale orange-yellow colour, the axis of which coincides always with the track of the plane of polarization.
1878. Gurney, Crystallog., 111. In certain adjustments of the polariscope … two dark brushes which run across the rings.
II. from BRUSH v.2
8. A brushing; an application of a brush.
1822. Scott, Nigel, xxxvii. He … gives his beaver a brush, and cocks it in the face of all creation.
Mod. Give your hair a brush.
9. A graze, esp. on a horse’s leg. (cf. BRUSH v.2 6.)
1710. Lond. Gaz., No. 4649/4. A Grey Gelding … having … a Brush in the right Hip.
III. attrib. and Comb.
10. simple attrib. Brush-like.
1675. Lond. Gaz., No. 1044/4. A dark brown Nag … a brush tail, if not cut since stolen. Ibid. (1703), No. 3895/4. Lost … a large liver-colour’d and white Spaniel, with a brush Tail. Ibid. (1711), No. 4900/4. A whisk Tail and brush Mane.
11. General relations: a. attributive, as brush-drop, -play, -power, -work; b. objective, as brushmaker, -manufacturer; c. similative and parasynthetic, as brush-form, -like, -shaped, -tailed.
1878. Symonds, Sonn. M. Angelo, v. A rich Embroidery Bedews my face from *brush-drops thick and thin.
1872. Watts, Dict. Chem., II. 402. Electric discharge, especially in the *brush-form, frequently takes place in curves.
1859. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., V. 478/2. This end of the hair is more or less ragged and *brush-like.
1709. Lond. Gaz., No. 4538/4. Joseph Wheeler, *Brushmaker by Trade.
1812. Examiner, 12 Oct., 650/2. W. Jones … *brush manufacturer.
1884. St. James’s Gaz., 24 Jan., 6/2. An appearance of fusion obtained by a delicate dexterity of *brush-play [in painting].
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 10 March, 4/2. His *brush-power was not more remarkable than his vision.
1880. Gray, Bot. Text-bk., Gloss., 397/2. *Brush-shaped … made up of numerous spreading hairs, &c., in a tuft, as the stigmas of Grasses.
1853. Kingsley, Hypatia, xxi. 258. Four or five brace of tall *brush-tailed greyhounds.
1868. Illust. Lond. News, 11 April. There is no obtrusively pretentious *brushwork nor garish colouring.
12. Special combs.: brush-burn, an inflammation or sore caused by violent friction; brush-gold (Painting), gold pigment for applying with a brush; brush-grass, Andropogon Gryllus; brush-iron-ore, brush-ore, an iron ore found in the Forest of Dean (see quots.); brush-pencil, an artist’s color brush; brush-tea (see quot.); brush-tongued a., having a tongue tipped with a brush-like cluster of filaments; brush-wheel, (a) a kind of friction-wheel which turns another similar wheel by means of bristles, cloth, leather, etc., fixed on their circumferences; (b) a circular revolving brush used for polishing, etc.
1861. Reade, Cloister & H., I. 13. Margaret Van Eyck gave him a little *brush-gold, and some vermilion.
1633. Gerard, Herbal, I. xxii. *Brushgrasse.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, IV. (1723), 197. Minera ferri Stalactica … called *Brush-Iron-Ore.
1678. Phil. Trans., XII. 932. The Iron-Ore … is found in great abundance…. The best, which they call their Brush-Ore, is of a Blewish colour.
1831. J. Holland, Manuf. Metals, I. 33. A curious stalactite, rich in iron, and termed brush ore, from its being found hanging from the tops of caverns in striæ resembling a brush.
1703. Arts Improv., I. 41. With a *Brush-Pencil, Marble the thing you would Varnish.
1813. Milburn, Orient. Comm., II. 525. *Brush Tea—so called from the leaves being twisted into small cords like pack-thread, about 11/2 to 2 inches long.
1880. St. James’s Budget, 17 Sept., 12/2. Regions where humming-birds and *brush-tongued lories abound.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, I. 548. Wheels … made to turn each other by means of bristles fixed in their circumference; these are called *brush wheels.
