broom

A broom (also known in some forms as a broomstick) is a cleaning tool consisting of usually stiff fibers (often made of materials such as plastic, hair, or corn husks) attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. It is thus a variety of brush with a long handle. It is commonly used in combination with a dustpan.

A distinction is made between a "hard broom" and a "soft broom" and a spectrum in between. Soft brooms are used in some cultures chiefly for sweeping walls of cobwebs and spiders, like a "feather duster", with hard brooms are for rougher tasks like sweeping dirt off sidewalks or concrete floors, or even smoothing and texturing wet concrete. The majority of brooms are somewhere in between, suitable for sweeping the floors of homes and businesses, soft enough to be flexible and to move even light dust, but stiff enough to achieve a firm sweeping action.

The word "broom" derives from the name of certain thorny shrubs used for sweeping. The name of the shrubs began to be used for the household implement in Late Middle English and gradually replaced the earlier besom during the Early Modern English period.

扫帚 sào zhǒu
1. 扫地用具。以竹枝、芒草等扎成。有长柄。
2. 植物名。藜科地肤子属，一年生草本。高一公尺余。分枝多，叶互生，夏季开花。胞果扁球形。茎枝晒干后可做扫帚。

笤帚 tiáozhou 原指用细竹枝束成的扫地用具,现常指用已脱粒的高粱穗或黍子穗等扎成的扫地、除尘用具。

The broom is also a symbolic object associated with witchcraft and ceremonial magic. Ceremonial magic (ritual magic, high magic or learned magic) encompasses a wide variety of long, elaborate, and complex rituals of magic. The works included are characterized by ceremony and numerous requisite accessories to aid the practitioner.

In Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West used a broomstick to fly over Oz. She also used it to skywrite "Surrender Dorothy" above the Emerald City.

In Disney's 1940 film Fantasia, Mickey Mouse, playing The Sorcerer's Apprentice, brings a broom to life to do his chore of filling a well full of water. The broom overdoes its job and when chopped into pieces, each splinter becomes a new broom that flood the room until Yen Sid stops them.

In J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels and film adaptations, broomsticks are a common form of transport for wizards and witches. These are also used for the magical sport of Quidditch, in which players use their broomsticks to fly around a field and shoot goals.

In baseball, when the home team is close to accomplishing a sweep (having won the first two games of a three-game series or first three games of a four-game series), some fans will bring brooms to the ballpark and brandish them as a way of taunting the visiting team.

六级/考研单词: broom, stiff, fibre, seldom, parallel, cylinder, thereby, spectrum, spider, dirt, rigid, tentative, derive, thorn, shrub, implement, gradual, witch, magic, ritual, elaborate, ceremony, accessory, practitioner, wicked, surrender, apprentice, chore, chop, accomplish