toothcomb
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈtuːθkəʊm/
ipa: /ˈtuθˌkoʊm/
Forms: form: toothcombs
form: tooth comb
form: tooth-comb
Etymology: The noun is derived from fine toothcomb, a rebracketing of fine-tooth comb. The verb is derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: The police went through all his possessions with a toothcomb.
text: [advertisement] [A] quantity of Pencil Cases, Fans, Tooth-combs, and Nail-brushes, a Pier-glass, and various other very useful articles.
ref: 1828 April 19, The Hobart Town Courier, Hobart, Tasmania, page 3, column 2:
text: When the Arabs speak of things as alike in respect of good qualities, they call them 'as like as the teeth of a tooth-comb;' whereas, if they speak of similarity in bad qualities, they say 'as like as the teeth of an ass.'
ref: 1850, Al Hariri of Basra, “The Makamah of Damietta. The Words of Hareth ibn-Hammam.”, in Theodore Preston, transl., Makamat: Or Rhetorical Anecdotes of Al Hariri of Basra […], London: […] W[illia]m H[oughton] Allen & Co., […]; Paris: B. Duprat, →OCLC, footnote 4, page 374:
text: Racks, shears and toothcombs here, sit down: / With such a shaggy, shockdog crown / Who but some rustic, clodpoll clown / Would think of venturing into town?
ref: 1853 January 14, James Henry, Notes of a Twelve Years’ Voyage of Discovery in the First Six Books of the Eneis, Dresden: Meinhold and Sons, →OCLC:
text: Thin-skinned dunces, too, in power, hate satire, to use Sidney [i.e., Sydney] Smith's simile, for the same reason as "fleas detest tooth-combs," because they cannot escape it.
ref: 1854, Octavius Freire Owen, “The Degenerate Bees”, in John Gay, The Fables of John Gay Illustrated. […], London: George Routledge & Co. […], →OCLC, footnote 2, page 228:
text: Ah, Sir, you needn't look. I never had nothing in my head since I was born, and I always use the toothcomb.
ref: 1868 March 1, Matthew Browne, “A Working Man’s Courtship”, in Norman McLeod, editor, Good Words, volume IX, London: Strahan and Co., […], →OCLC, letter XI, page 188, column 2:
text: Mr. John Oxley Parker exhibited the following miscellaneous objects found at Othona (Bradwell-juxta-Mare), [...] two pieces of Roman tooth combs, [...]
ref: 1873 August 1, “Annual General Meeting at Maldon, 1st August, 1873”, in Transactions of the Essex Archæological Society, volume V, part IV, Colchester, Essex: […] Museum, Colchester Castle, […] “Essex & West Suffolk Gazette” Office, […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 318:
text: I wandered up and down the streets, vainly hoping to be struck by some brilliant inspiration that should select for me the sort of work to take in hand. I would be a crossing-sweeper, a shoeblack, a vendor of cherries, a seller of penny watches or tooth[-]combs.
ref: 1877, Douglas Straight, “Joey the Tumbler”, in Old Pictures in a New Frame, London: Frederick Warne and Co., […], →OCLC, page 29:
text: Queer thing, isn't it, that all the pretty things that please one are all irretrievably wrong, and everything that sets one's teeth on edge, and scratches through one's brain like a metallic tooth comb, are all scientifically exquisite.
ref: 1878, Ouida [pseudonym; Maria Louise Ramé], chapter XXIII, in Friendship […], volume II, London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 259:
text: Gradually, as we became more wet, we grew more desperate, and before long floundered down as regardless of bumps as a bluebottle in a conservatory: at one moment slithering over wet slabs of rock to which damp tufts of moss were loosely adherent, at another climbing carefully over gigantic toothcombs of fallen trees, then plunging head foremost—sometimes not exactly head foremost—through jungle-like masses of long grass and dwarf brushwood.
ref: 1885, Clinton [Thomas] Dent, “A Day across Country”, in Above the Snow Line: Mountaineering Sketches between 1870 and 1880, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 121:
text: The only instrument that will adequately meet the case is a general Consular warrant under which the police shall be able to make a house to house search, swooping down upon any premises which they have reason to suspect, and, metaphorically speaking, drawing the contents through a tooth[-]comb.
ref: 1913 December 13, “The Smuggling of Arms”, in The North-China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette: The Weekly Edition of the North-China Daily News, volume CIX (New Series), number 2418, Shanghai: […] North-China Daily News & Herald, Ld., →OCLC, page 791, column 3:
text: Word was passed to the Customs authorities, and every soul that left the ship was gone over with a toothcomb!
ref: 1924 March, Agatha Christie, “The Million Dollar Bond Robbery”, in Poirot Investigates, facsimile edition, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, published 2007, →ISBN, page 126:
text: The Russians were suspicious as hell. I gather they went over the place with a toothcomb when they got back, looking for microphones and bombs and so on.
ref: 1957, Ian Fleming, “The Tunnel of Rats”, in From Russia, with Love, London: Vintage Books, published 2012, →ISBN, part 2 (The Execution), page 197:
text: I want you to go through its staff with the finest toothcomb you can lay your hands on, and to miss out nothing, absolutely nothing.
ref: 1981, Peter James, chapter 9, in Dead Letter Drop, London: Pan Books, published 2014, →ISBN, page 73:
text: Jeremy Purseglove went through the tables with a tooth comb, which helped no end with ecology and naming; [...]
ref: 1987, [John St.] Bodfan Gruffydd, “Acknowledgements”, in Tree Form, Size and Colour: A Guide to Selection, Planting and Design, London: E. & F. N. Spon, Chapman & Hall, published 1995, →ISBN, page xi:
text: I just want some assurance that HMRC [Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs] will go through the deal with a toothcomb to ensure that the taxpayer gets the proper benefit under the law of the tax that Vodafone should pay on the massive windfall profit that it is making.
ref: 2013 September 2, Margaret Hodge (chair), “Oral Evidence”, in Committee of Public Accounts, House of Commons of the United Kingdom, Charges for Customer Telephone Lines: Twenty-seventh Report of Session 2013–14 […] (HC 617), London: The Stationery Office, published 11 November 2013, →ISBN, archived from the original on 11 Nov 2013, question 103, page Ev 16:
glosses: A comb with finely spaced teeth, chiefly as a metaphorical means of making a thorough search.