Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Toothbrush |
ToothbrushNoun1. Small brush; has long handle; used to clean teeth. 2. (informal) slang terms for a mustache. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "toothbrush" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1868. (references) |
Synonym: ToothbrushSynonym: soup-strainer (n). (additional references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Many traditional cultures around the world have cleaned their teeth by rubbing twigs or pieces of wood against them since ancient times. Rubbing baking soda or chalk against the teeth was also common.
According to the American Dental Association, the first toothbrush was built in 1498 by an emperor in China who had hog bristles embedded in a bone handle. They were not common in the West until the 17th century, and became much more common in the 19th century. (A common older method of tooth cleaning, by rubbing with a piece of rag cloth, was in use in Europe at least since Roman times). Natural bristles (from animal hair) were replaced by synthetic materials, usually nylon, by DuPont in 1938.
Toothpaste is commonly added to a toothbrush to aid in cleaning.
In January 2003, the toothbrush was selected as the number one invention Americans could not live without, beating out the automobile, personal computer, cell phone, and microwave, according to the Lemelson-MIT Invention Index[1].
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Toothbrush."
Crosswords: Toothbrush |
| English words defined with "toothbrush": dentifrice ♦ electric toothbrush ♦ mustard tree ♦ Salvadora persica ♦ toothbrush tree. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "toothbrush": ACHYRANTHES ASPERA, ACHYROCLINE SATUREOIDES ♦ BEVELER, PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | If you wanted a toothbrush, I wouldn't ask questions. (The Shawshank Redemption; writing credit: Frank Darabont) Just the toothbrush and the gun. (Bulldog Drummond; writing credit: Herman C. McNeile; Sidney Howard) Is this toothbrush approved by the American Dental Association? (Home Alone; writing credit: John Hughes) The toothbrush has been in my mouth. (Friends; writing credit: Jörn O. Jensen; Birger Larsen) Get your toothbrush and whatever! (Flash Gordon; writing credit: Michael Allin; Alex Raymond) | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Old Family Toothbrush (1925) Don't Forget Your Toothbrush (2000) The Toothbrush Family (1999) Don't Forget Your Toothbrush (1995) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
References | |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Consumer Goods |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
![]() | Toothbrush drill in New York City. Credit: National Library of Medicine. | ![]() | You never outgrow your toothbrush. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
![]() | [Showing a toothbrush, toothpaste and a smile]. Credit: National Library of Medicine. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Prince William and Sweden | In America you must live life with a smile, even before your toothbrush has had time to reach your mouth. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Use a soft toothbrush. (references) | |
Use a very soft toothbrush to clean your teeth. (references) | ||
Teeth should be brushed after each meal, using a soft toothbrush. (references) | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Toothbrush" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 95.38% of the time. "Toothbrush" is used about 130 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 95.38% | 124 | 28,785 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 1.54% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 1.54% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.54% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 130 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "toothbrush": electric toothbrush ♦ toothbrush moustache ♦ toothbrush tree. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "toothbrush"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | furçë dhëmbësh. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | فرشاة أسنان. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Asturian | cepiyu dientes. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bemba | umuswaki. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | четка за зъби. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cebuano | sipilyo. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chamorro | guesgues nifen. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 牙刷 . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cornish | scüber dyns. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | kartáèek na zuby (tooth brush). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | tandboersteholder (toothbrush holder). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | tandenborstelhouder (toothbrush holder). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faeroese | tannbust. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | مسواک دندان . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | hammasharja (tooth-brush). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | brosse dents (tooth-brush). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frisian | toskboarstel (tooth-brush). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Zahnbürste (tooth brush, tooth-brush). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | οδοντόβουρτσα. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | מברשת ש ים. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | fogkefe (tooth-brush). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | sikat gigi. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Inuktitut | kigutisiut. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | spazzolino da denti. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 歯ブラシ . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | はブラシ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 칫". (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Macedonian | cetka za zabi. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | skeaban feeackle. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Maori | paraahi niho. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | oothbrushtay resguardo para escova de dentes (toothbrush holder). (various references) fretadents. (various references) barschun da dents. (various references) umujigiti. (various references) зубная щетка (tooth brush, tooth-brush). (various references) palasi fulunifo. (various references) četkica za zube (tooth brush). (various references) cepillo de dientes (tooth-brush). (various references) sí-cubho. (various references) tandborste (tooth-brush). (various references) diş fırçası. (various references) зубна щітка. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "toothbrush": toothbrushes, toothbrushing, toothbrushings. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "toothbrush" (pronounced tuw"thbru'sh) |
| 4 | -b r u' sh | paintbrush, sagebrush, underbrush. |
| 3 | -r u' sh | bulrush. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "b-h-h-o-o-r-s-t-t-u" | |
-1 letter: outthrobs. | |
-2 letters: outthrob. | |
-3 letters: hotshot, outshot, turbots. | |
-4 letters: bhoots, booths, borsht, broths, robots, robust, rouths, throbs, thrush, thrust, tooths, toroth, torous, troths, trouts, truths, turbos, turbot, tutors. | |
-5 letters: bhoot, bhuts, boors, boost, booth, boots, borts, botts, bouts, broos, broth, brush, buhrs, burst, butts, hobos, hoots, horst, hours, hurst, hurts, ortho, ottos, robot, roost, roots, rotos. | |
| Words containing the letters "b-h-h-o-o-r-s-t-t-u" | |
+2 letters: toothbrushes. | |
+3 letters: toothbrushing. | |
+4 letters: toothbrushings. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)54 6F 6F 74 68 62 72 75 73 68 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)- --- --- - .... -... .-. ..- ... .... |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010100 01101111 01101111 01110100 01101000 01100010 01110010 01110101 01110011 01101000 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)T o o t h b r u s h |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0054 006F 006F 0074 0068 0062 0072 0075 0073 0068 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)54818186746884878574 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Orthography 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.