brush
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "brush", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "brush" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "brush" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
brush is aEnglishnoun. It means: An 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. Pronounced /bɹʌʃ/. It ranks #4,828 in English word frequency. Often confused with bus and busy.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | brush |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɹʌʃ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #4,828 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for brush is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɹʌʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,828 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for brush, with forms such as "bbrush", "brrush", and "brsuh". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "bus", "busy", "bush", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is brush, spelled B-R-U-S-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An 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.
- 2The act of brushing something.
- 3A piece of conductive material, usually carbon, serving to maintain electrical contact between the stationary and rotating parts of a machine.
- 4A brush-like electrical discharge of sparks.
- 5Wild vegetation, generally larger than grass but smaller than trees. See shrubland.
- 6A short, possibly recurrent encounter or experience.
- 7The furry tail of an animal, especially of a fox.
- 8A tuft of hair on the mandibles.
- 9A short contest, or trial, of speed.
- 10An instrument, resembling a brush, used to produce a soft sound from drums or cymbals.
- 11An on-screen tool for "painting" a particular colour or texture.
- 12A set of defined design and parameters that produce drawn strokes of a certain texture and quality.
- 13In 3D video games, a convex polyhedron, especially one that defines structure of the play area.
- 14The floorperson of a poker room, usually in a casino.
- 15Evergreen boughs, especially balsam, locally cut and baled for export, usually for use in making wreaths.
Etymology
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-.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbrush,brrush,brsuh,bruhs,brushh,brussh,bursh,rbush
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for brush
Misspelling Variants of "brush"
Frequency rank: #4,828 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: