grooming

1. 1
   personal carenoununcountable

   The care a person gives to their own appearance, cleanliness, and clothes.

   The academy expects cadets to keep high standards of dress and grooming.

   His careful grooming, from the trimmed beard to the pressed shirt, made him look older than twenty.

2. 2
   animal carenoununcountable

   The cleaning and brushing involved in looking after horses and other animals.

   Regular grooming keeps a horse's coat clean and helps you spot small cuts early.

   The kennel charges extra for the grooming of long-haired breeds.

3. 3
   luring victimsnoununcountable

   The act of winning the trust of a child or vulnerable person so as to exploit or take advantage of them, especially sexually.

   The court heard that the grooming had gone on for months before a teacher raised the alarm.

   Child-safety charities warn that online grooming can begin with flattery and small gifts.

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of groom.

   Crews were grooming the ski slopes overnight after the heavy snowfall.

   The party has been grooming her as its next candidate for governor.

   Note

   The object decides which verb you hear. Crews grooming a slope are packing down its snow; a cat grooming itself is cleaning; a party grooming someone as its candidate, or for a post, is preparing them for office. As a gerund it keeps its object (grooming a successor takes years), which is what separates it from the nouns spelled the same way.

5. 5
   career trainingnoununcountable

   The act of teaching someone, often to prepare them for advancement at work.

   The company's grooming of young managers includes a year spent in each department.

   Despite a decade of grooming as his father's successor, he left the firm to start his own.

   Similartraining, preparation, mentoring

6. 6
   monkey cleaningnoununcountable

   Among primates, the practice of picking through the hair of another animal in search of insects and similar matter.

   The researchers recorded which baboons took part in grooming after each squabble.

   In the afternoon heat, the troop settled into quiet rounds of grooming.

   Note

   Primatologists treat it as social glue as much as hygiene. Picking through a companion's fur clears out parasites and dirt, but the pattern of who grooms whom traces friendships and rank, and a bout can follow a squabble as a way of making peace. It is usually uncountable, so researchers speak of rounds or sessions of grooming rather than of groomings.

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