Brushing

How to spell brushing

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce brushing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does brushing mean?

1. verbCleaning, grooming, or sweeping something using a brush or a light wiping motion.

Brushing in a sentence

• She was brushing her teeth when the phone rang.

• Regular brushing keeps the dog's coat free of tangles.

Where does brushing come from?

Language of origin: French

The base word brush came into Middle English in the 1300s from the Old French brosse, which meant a bundle of twigs or brushwood used for sweeping. That French term is thought to descend from a Late Latin or Vulgar Latin form related to bristly undergrowth, the same idea that gives us the modern sense of a thicket called 'brush'. As the twiggy sweeping bundle gave way to handled tools with set bristles, the word came to name both the implement and the act of using it. The form 'brushing' simply adds the native English suffix -ing, which has been turning verbs into gerunds and participles since Old English, to the verb brush. Because the suffix attaches cleanly to the whole word, the spelling keeps the full 'brush' intact, so the only thing to watch is the single 's' before the 'h'.

How the word is built

• brush (root: a tool of bristles, or the action of sweeping with it)
• -ing (suffix forming a gerund or present participle)