noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of paintbrush
Explanation
The long-handled tool with bristles that artists use for dabbing color onto canvas is a paintbrush. If you want to tint your walls in shades of pink, you'll also need a paintbrush. Although some painters have famously splattered, dripped, rolled, and otherwise creatively applied paint to a canvas, the vast majority of them use paintbrushes. The type of paintbrush a housepainter uses has a shorter handle and wider bristles, but its purpose is the same: to smoothly and precisely apply paint to a surface. Whether your medium is watercolors, oil paints, or deck stain, your paintbrush will have soft bristles and a wooden or plastic handle.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Left alone, tradition gets sillier and more alive whether it involves a god, a robot, or a scallion masquerading as a paintbrush.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
Digiovanni lived in temporary housing when she was younger and she was not allowed to decorate her property, but when she moved to a permanent address she was eager to get a paintbrush out.
From BBC ● Jun. 5, 2026
Sitting cross-legged on a red carpet, artist Mohammad Younes Qane uses an ultra-fine paintbrush to trace details such as a horse's mane or the beads of a necklace.
From Barron's ● Feb. 4, 2026
The area is home to San Bernardino flying squirrels and ash-gray Indian paintbrush, a federally protected plant found only in the San Bernardino Mountains.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2025
He settled it and took the paintbrush in his hand.
From "It All Comes Down to This" by Karen English
The men took different roles as Ukrainian civilians donned camouflage to join the fight: Leontyev became a weapons instructor and Stefanov swapped his paintbrushes for a camera.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 6, 2025
That’s in no more than half an hour of walking around, without trowels and paintbrushes.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 30, 2023
At this former office building-turned-art-and-event space, repurposed conference rooms — projector screens still on the walls — have been transformed into artists’ studios featuring easels and paintbrushes.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 9, 2023
Yet many Hospital Rooms projects require paintbrushes, power tools and other potentially dangerous objects.
From New York Times ● Nov. 17, 2022
It took me a second to realize that our home was in complete disarray—strips of watercolor paper everywhere, cut-up clothes in small piles on the floor, paintbrushes and buckets strewn across the dining room table.
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
