horse-comb
See also: horse comb and horsecomb
English
Alternative forms
- horsecomb, horse comb
Etymology
From Middle English horscomb, horsecombe, horskame, horskambe, from Old English horscamb (“horse-comb, curry-comb”), equivalent to horse + comb.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈhɔːsˌkəʊm/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈhɔɹsˌkoʊm/
Noun
horse-comb (plural horse-combs)
- A comb used by horse groomers for combing the mane and tail of horses.
- A curry comb (comb used for brushing a horse's coat)
- 1675, Christopher Wase, Dictionarium Minus, A Compendious Dictionary English-Latin and Latin-English […] , second edition, page 599:
- A Horſe-comb. Strigilis.
- 1837, “Driving to Cover:-Portrait of J. S. W. S. Erle Drax, Esq. Charborough Park, Dorsetshire.”, in The New Sporting Magazine, volume 13, number 79, page 262:
- In the reign of Henry V, the service seems to have been changed to the annual delivery of a “horse comb, value four-pence.”
- 2003, Pamela Howe Taylor, The Germans We Trusted: Stories of Friendship Resulting from the Second World War, →ISBN, page 34:
- After six weeks in Belgium he arrived in England with only two possessions: an aluminium horse comb and a handkerchief.
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Anagrams
- chemosorb