scrubbing brush
- noun
- /ˈskrʌbɪŋ brʌʃ/
- Then, firmly holding on to her pail and scrubbing brush, she disappears, and Christine takes the key off the board.
Examples
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Two scrubbing brushes...
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eta: and I'd start with a bath and a very hard scrubbing brush.
Blog text (1) -
The floor was some sort of stainless steel, and a stainless steel toilet that has probably never seen the good side of a scrubbing brush.
Blog text (14) -
They soon returned; however, this time bringing soap and towels, a jug, and a scrubbing brush.
Fiction book (1994) -
In the kitchen, stock-still, scrubbing brush still in her hand where she had been slaving away at the rust stains on the ancient sink drainboard, my mother stood staring at the radio as though trying to see the words just said.
Fiction book (1993) -
She used a scrubbing brush to clean the dirty dishes thoroughly.
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For stubborn stains, a good scrubbing brush is essential for a deep clean.
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The scrubbing brush helped remove the grime from the bathroom tiles.
Synonyms
A brush with short, stiff bristles for cleaning hard surfaces
A brush with short stiff bristles for cleaning burnt or hard dirt
A brush with short, stiff hairs for cleaning or painting rough surfaces
A person or tool that cleans ship decks and floors
Tools like a broom or vacuum that you use to clean surfaces and rooms
A tool like a broom or mop used to clean floors and other surfaces
A tool like a vacuum or brush that cleans surfaces
How Stiff
- UK
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a brush used for cleaning surfaces thoroughly' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'scrubbing' (the act of cleaning by friction) with 'brush' (a cleaning tool). This noun-noun compound follows a common compositional pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Scrubbing brush comes from two plain words: scrub, meaning 'to rub hard to remove dirt', and brush, meaning 'a tool with stiff hairs'. Imagine rubbing that small, stiff-bristled brush back and forth across a dirty floor, and that image shows why it means 'a brush for heavy cleaning'.