A small brush with a long handle, used for cleansing the teeth.
[1651, 1751: see teeth-brush, TOOTH sb. 9 b.]
1690. Wood, Life (O.H.S.), III. 319. [Bought] toothbrush [of] J. Barret.
1807. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life, 236. While you are waiting … for a fresh supply of tooth-brushes.
1844. W. H. Maxwell, Sports & Adv. Scotl., ii. (1855), 35. My chattels are safe,… even to a tooth-brush.
b. attrib., as tooth-brush handle; tooth-brush moustache (humorous), a bristly moustache; tooth-brush tree, a name for Salvadora persica, from the use of its twigs for cleaning the teeth.
1886. Fenn, Master Cerem., i. That peg was an old toothbrush handle.
1891. Cent. Dict., s.v. Salvadora, S. Persica … in India furnishes kikuel-oil, and from the use of its twigs is sometimes called toothbrush-tree.
1904. Daily Chron., 31 Aug., 4/4. Clothes of outlandish cut, toothbrush moustache.
Hence Toothbrushy a. nonce-wd., resembling a tooth-brush; bristly.
1904. ‘A. Hope,’ Double Harness, xiii. His toothbrushy hair had … more than usual of its suggestion of comical distress.
