# grooming

Pronunciation: say "GROO-ming" /ˈɡɹuːmɪŋ/

## Noun

1. The care a person gives to their own appearance, cleanliness, and clothes.
   - Simple: Taking care of how you look, by keeping clean, neat and well dressed.
   - _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. The cleaning and brushing involved in looking after horses and other animals.
   - Simple: Taking care of horses or other animals by brushing and cleaning them.
   - _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. The act of winning the trust of a child or vulnerable person so as to exploit or take advantage of them, especially sexually.
   - Simple: Gaining the trust of a child or other at-risk person in order to use or harm 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._
5. The act of teaching someone, often to prepare them for advancement at work.
   - Simple: Teaching and getting someone ready, often so they can move up 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._
6. Among primates, the practice of picking through the hair of another animal in search of insects and similar matter.
   - Simple: When monkeys and apes pick through each other's hair, looking for bugs and dirt.
   - _The researchers recorded which baboons took part in grooming after each squabble._
   - _In the afternoon heat, the troop settled into quiet rounds of grooming._

## Verb

4. Present participle and gerund of groom. — present participle and gerund of groom
   - Simple: Present participle and gerund of groom. Use it for an action going on, or to name the action.
   - _Crews were grooming the ski slopes overnight after the heavy snowfall._
   - _The party has been grooming her as its next candidate for governor._

## Other meanings

- (noun) In agile software development, the work of reviewing the items in the development backlog and putting them in order of priority.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/grooming (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).