fine-tooth comb
- noun
- /faɪn tuːθ koʊm/
:
peine de púas finas
- After the haircut, he carefully styled his hair with a fine-tooth comb for a polished look.
You do not want to be like a little fine tooth comb when your hair is wet because it's just not good.
- You do not want to be like a little fine tooth comb when your hair is wet because it's just not good.
Examples
-
She used a fine-tooth comb to remove all the lice from her daughter's hair.
-
Barn's eyebrows are smooth, every hair going the same way, like he lines them up by size with a fine-tooth comb.
Fiction book (1994) -
You do not want to be like a little fine tooth comb when your hair is wet because it's just not good.
-
The hairdresser recommended using a fine-tooth comb for precise grooming of curly hair.
Synonyms
A small tool with very close teeth used to remove lice or untangle hair
How Fine
49
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
fine-tooth + comb
Literally the phrase describes a comb with 'fine' (small/closely spaced) 'teeth', so a learner who knows the component words can infer a tool for catching small details. The idiomatic use meaning 'examine closely' is a metaphorical extension of that literal image — partially inferable from the constituents but not fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
Fine-tooth comb is a small comb with very close teeth used to pull out lice and tiny bits from hair, so it is the tool for precise grooming.