comb-v; 3 Senses

Sense Number 1: Physically smoothen, neaten, or straighten, as with a comb.

Examples:
Comb your hair before going outside!
Workers comb out the wool.
The women comb the yarn in preparation for spinning.
The wine bristles comb the hair neatly.

Mappings:
VerbNet: braid-41.2.2,wipe_instr-10.4.2-1
FrameNet: Grooming
PropBank: comb.02
WordNet 3.0 Sense Numbers: 1, 3
WordNet Verb Particle Constructions, Multiword Expressions:
comb_out 2

Sense Number 2: Search an area thoroughly for a sought entity.

Examples:
They combed the area for the missing child.
We combed the neighborhood for that dog.

Mappings:
VerbNet: search-35.2
FrameNet: Scrutiny,Scouring,Seeking
PropBank: comb.01
WordNet 3.0 Sense Numbers: 2

Sense Number 3: Remove unwanted elements.

Examples:
The company combed out the incompetent people.
The new law combs out the old inequities.
The process combs out impurities in the solution.

Mappings:
VerbNet: NM
FrameNet: Scouring,Scrutiny,Seeking
PropBank: NM
WordNet Verb Particle Constructions, Multiword Expressions:
comb_out 1