What does "comb" mean?

Comb: An instrument for currying hairy animals, or cleansing and smoothing their coats; a currycomb.

Additional senses

  1. 2.(Manuf. & Mech.) (a) A toothed instrument used for separating and cleansing wool, flax, hair, etc. (b) The serrated vibratory doffing knife of a carding machine. (c) A former, commonly cone-shaped, used in hat manufacturing for hardening the soft fiber into a bat. (d) A tool with teeth, used for chasing screws on work in a lathe; a chaser. (e) The notched scale of a wire micrometer. (f) The collector of an electrical machine, usually resembling a comb.
  2. 3.(Zoöl.) (a) The naked fleshy crest or caruncle on the upper part of the bill or hood of a cock or other bird. It is usually red. (b) One of a pair of peculiar organs on the base of the abdomen of scorpions.
  3. 4.The curling crest of a wave.
  4. 5.The waxen framework forming the walls of the cells in which bees store their honey, eggs, etc.; honeycomb. "A comb of honey." Wyclif. When the bee doth leave her comb. Shak.
  5. 6.The thumbpiece of the hammer of a gunlock, by which it may be cocked.
  6. 7.To disentangle, cleanse, or adjust, with a comb; to lay smooth and straight with, or as with, a comb; as, to comb hair or wool. See under Combing. Comb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright. Shak.
  7. 8.To roll over, as the top or crest of a wave; to break with a white foam, as waves.
  8. 9.That unwatered portion of a valley which forms its continuation beyond and above the most elevated spring that issues into it. [Written also coombe.] Buckland. A gradual rise the shelving combe Displayed. Southey.
  9. 10.A dry measure. See Coomb.

Sources