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Glite Dictionary
🔍 Careful check 🧑‍🦱 A close comb
fine-toothed comb

fine-toothed comb

3.7
A small tool with very close teeth used to remove lice or untangle hair
  • noun
  • /faɪn tuːθt koʊm/
translation icon : peine de púas finas
  • For precise grooming of her long hair, she always kept a fine-toothed comb in her purse.

Examples

  • To remove the lice from her daughter's hair, she carefully used a fine-toothed comb after applying the treatment.

  • After styling his hair, he finished off with a fine-toothed comb to ensure everything was in place.

  • You'll want to have a rat tail comb, some sort of a fine toothed comb and if you like to use this in to sort of boost up any teased areas in your hair, this will help.

Synonyms

fine-tooth comb
vsfine-toothed comb
3.7

A comb with very close teeth used to remove lice from hair

is the same meaning but uses an adjectival modifier form instead

How Gentle

hairbrush
23 1.0
fine-toothed comb
3.7

Surface Forms

fine-toothed comb singular
fine-toothed combs plural

Morphology

fine-toothed + comb

The phrase evokes a clear visual: a comb with closely spaced ('fine-toothed') teeth used to pick through things, so combining 'fine-toothed' and 'comb' naturally suggests searching or examining very carefully. This compositional, image-based mapping is directly inferable from the constituents, so a B1 learner who knows the words can derive the meaning.

Etymology

Fine-toothed comb is a small comb with very close teeth used to pull out tiny things like lice or to smooth small tangles, so it refers to a tool for very exact grooming.