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comb-out

noun
/ˈkəʊ̯mˌaʊ̯t/UK/ˈkoʊ̯mˌaʊ̯t/CA/ˈkəʉ̯mˌæɔ̯t/

Etymology

Deverbal from comb out. First attested in 1915–1920 (sense 1 and sense 2). First attested in 1940 (sense 3).

Definitions

  1. An act of combing out hair.

  2. The identification and removal of someone or something.

  3. The act of sorting out.

    • McCann and I took ten men each and made a systematic comb-out of the Gardens. Every sniper we found we shot out of hand.
    • I’d like to see a good comb-out up there, to catch out these sort of people.
    • […]we were stopped by ten police mobile[…]this was one of the periodic comb-outs of streets in which the police hoped to catch criminals unawares.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for comb-out. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA