Definition of "comb"

A toothed implement:

1. A toothed implement for grooming the hair or (formerly) for keeping it in place.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved, put in curlers overnight, waved with hot tongs; […].

     1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins

2. A machine used in separating choice cotton fibers from worsted cloth fibers.  examples

3. The toothed plate at the top and bottom of an escalator that prevents objects getting trapped between the moving stairs and fixed landings.  examples

4. A toothed tool used for chasing screws on work in a lathe; a chaser.  examples

5. The notched scale of a wire micrometer.  examples

6. The collector of an electrical machine, usually resembling a comb.  examples

7. A toothed plate used for creating wells in agar gels for electrophoresis.  examples

8. (weaving) A toothed wooden pick used to push the weft thread tightly against the previous pass of thread to create a tight weave.  examples

9. One of a pair of peculiar organs on the base of the abdomen in scorpions, with which they comb substrate.  examples

A crest:

1. A fleshy growth on the top of the head of some birds and reptiles; crest.  examples

2. (by extension) A crest (of metal, leather, etc) on a piece of armor, especially on a helmet.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • The head-dress of the Horse Grenadiers consists of a peculiar leather helmet with a comb of bear's skin passing over it from ear to ear and a long scarlet […]

     1888, “Journal of the United Service Institution of India”, in United Service Institution of India, page 197

   • The armet has usually a low central cabled comb with parallel flutes on either side, occasionally there are three or five combs.

     1898, John Starkie Gardner, Armour in England from the Earliest Times to the Seventeenth Century, page 44

   • The combs or elbow pieces are beautifully made, and over the right armpit is […]

     1909, Albert Frederick Calvert, Madrid: An Historical Description and Handbook of the Spanish Capital, page 82

   • Charles I. (Edinburgh Castle) The Pikeman of the time of James I. was accoutred in a morion-shaped helmet with a comb of moderate size and a flat brim, […]

     2021, Charles Henry Ashdown, British and Foreign Arms & Armour, Good Press

3. The top part of a gun’s stock.  examples

A structure of hexagon cells made by bees for storing honey; honeycomb.  quotations  examples

(music) The main body of a harmonica containing the air chambers and to which the reed plates are attached.  examples

A former, commonly cone-shaped, used in hat manufacturing for hardening soft fibre.  examples

An old English measure of corn equal to the half quarter.  quotations  examples

The curling crest of a wave; a comber.  examples

(algebraic geometry) A connected and reduced curve with irreducible components consisting of a smooth subcurve (called the handle) and one or more additional irreducible components (called teeth) that each intersect the handle in a single point that is unequal to the unique point of intersection for any of the other teeth.  examples

(Cornwall, mining, obsolete) A kind of vertical plate in a lode.

(transitive, especially of hair or fur) To groom with a toothed implement, especially a comb.  examples

(transitive) To separate choice cotton fibers from worsted cloth fibers.  examples

(transitive) To search thoroughly as if raking over an area with a comb.  examples

(nautical, intransitive) To roll over, as the top or crest of a wave; to break with a white foam, as waves.  examples

(naval, transitive) To turn a vessel parallel to (the track of) (a torpedo) so as to reduce one's size as a target.  quotations  examples

(rare) Abbreviation of combination.

Alternative form of combe  examples

(dialectal) Alternative form of coomb  quotations  examples