How do you use the word "brush" in a sentence?

Q: How do you use the word "brush" in a sentence?

Here are real-life examples of using "brush": You'd better brush up on your English if you 're going to go to America. Brush off the dust from your shoes.

Brush Meaning

/bɹʌʃ/

Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Definition

nounAn implement consisting of multiple more or less flexible bristles or other filaments attached to a handle, used for any of various purposes including cleaning, painting, and arranging hair.

nounThe act of brushing something.

Sentence Examples

You'd better brush up on your English if you 're going to go to America.

Brush off the dust from your shoes.

He dipped the brush into the paint.

CEFR Practice Quiz

Every morning I use a soft ____ to untangle my long hair.

CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)

She used a soft ____ to paint the details of the flower in her picture.

Word Origin & History

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰers- Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *bʰr̥stís Proto-Germanic *burstiz Frankish *burstibor. Vulgar Latin *brustia Old French broissebor. Middle English brusshe English brush From Middle English brusshe, from Old French broisse (Modern French brosse), from Vulgar Latin *brustia, from Frankish *bursti, from Proto-Germanic *burstiz (“bristle”), or also Vulgar Latin *bruscia, from Proto-Germanic *bruskaz (“tuft, thicket, underbrush”), which could be from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrusgo-.

Literary Quotations & Historical Citations

"as leaves Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush Fell from their boughs" — c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 92:

"If there was a sharp point nearby, electricity would stream from it in a luminous brush, a little corposant, and one could blow out candles with the outstreaming “electric wind,” or even get this to turn a little rotor on its pivot." — 2001, Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood:

"One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn. Fifty such kilns would devour six thousand metric tons of trees and brush annually." — 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion:

"The usual visual grammar was in place – a carpet in the street, people in paddocks awaiting a brush with something glamorous, blokes with earpieces, birds in frocks of colliding colours that if sighted in nature would indicate the presence of poison." — 2013 September 13, Russell Brand, “Russell Brand and the GQ awards: 'It's amazing how absurd it seems'”, in The Guardian:

"He fell seriously ill at 21 with pneumonia and doctors feared for his life. Three cysts were found on his right lung and part of it was removed in a brutal operation. The brush with death strengthened his determination to become a priest and he entered a Jesuit seminary soon afterwards." — 2025 April 21, Peter Stanford, “Pope Francis obituary”, in The Guardian:

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