broom
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: bro͞om
enpr: bro͝om
ipa: /bɹuːm/
ipa: /bɹʊm/
rhymes: -ʊm
rhymes: -uːm
homophone: brume
Forms: form: brooms
form: brooming
form: broomed
form: broomed
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English brom, from Old English brōm (“brushwood”), from Proto-West Germanic *brām (“bramble”) (compare Saterland Frisian Brom, West Frisian brem, Dutch braam, German Low German Braam), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrem-, from *bʰer- ‘edge’. Related to brim, brink.
Replaced English besom (from Old English besma (“broom, rod”)), which is now restricted in meaning to a particular kind of broom.
(shotgun): So called because it is (like the cleaning utensil) long and held similarly to a besom and “cleans” what is in front.
Senses: examples: text: […] Sidi, I was busy in the exercise of my functions, occupied in brooming the front of the stables, when who should come but Hhamed Ould Denéï on horseback, at full gallop, as if he were going to break his neck. […]
ref: 1855 September 29, Charles Dickens, "Model Officials", in Household Words: A Weekly Journal, Bradbury and Evens (1856), page 206
text: It was but this morning at eight, when poor Molly, was brooming the steps, and the baker paying her by no means unmerited compliments, that my landlady came whirling out of the ground-floor front, and sent the poor girl whimpering into the kitchen.
ref: a. 1857, William Makepeace Thackeray, Our Street, in Christmas Books: Mrs. Perkins's Ball, Our Street, Dr. Birch, Chapman & Hall (1857), Our Street page 8
text: After that I did take the broom from its place, and I gave the floor a good brooming. I broomed the boards up and down and cross-ways. There was not a speck of dirt on them left.
ref: a. 1920, Opal Stanley Whiteley, The Story of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart, Atlantic Monthly Press (1920), pages 58–59
text: We broomed the dirt floor clean with spruce branches, brought our gear inside, and moved in.
ref: 1997, Will Hobbs, Far North, HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 100:
glosses: To sweep with a broom.
topics: business
construction
manufacturing
roofing
glosses: To improve the embedding of a membrane by using a broom or squeegee to smooth it out and ensure contact with the adhesive under the membrane.
examples: text: April 2002 Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn, speaking to his son Harry, in the film "Spider-Man"
A word to the "not-so-wise" about your girlfriend. Do what you need to with her, then broom her fast.
text: let the employee leave on his own, or the boss must broom him. If you hire, or inherit, able people, and you groom them, you won't have to broom them. Groom, broom, and watch your company zoom.
ref: August 2002 Jeffrey J. Fox How to Become a Great Boss: The Rules for Getting and Keeping the Best Employees page 15
text: I still was going to go with Breslin until one day he said to me, "I got a confession to make to you. When my mother died on her deathbed I promised her I'd never drive a car and I still don't know how to drive a car." I figured for this picture you have to drive a car, so I just decided to broom him and go with an actor.
ref: 2012, George Stevens Jr., Conversations at the American Film Institute with the Great Moviemakers: The Next Generation, page 204:
glosses: To get rid of someone, like firing an employee or breaking up with a girlfriend, to sweep another out of one's life.