"I spent four hours combing a four-block radius," he said.

He'd spent hours combing through centuries-old civic records in the dusty bowels of the town archive.

Instead, Mr. Graziano tells students to complete paper applications and has his staff spend hours combing through them before mailing them for the students.

They spent the next hour combing the tunnels for any clues they could find about Hannibal's mystery weapon.

Mrs. Taff also spent hours combing through boxes of material stored at the library across the street from the school and interviewed those who lived near the school.

She spends hours combing her hair - which she wears as she did in high school, with bangs - and resents anyone interrupting that activity, her writings suggest.

They formed a protective canopy overhead, and I spent hours combing my fingers through the soft brown needles that carpeted the ground.

"The message arrived in an encrypted form, and I spent several hours combing through Selina's notes to find the cipher."

The Luce kids, who couldn't remember a time when Bobby hadn't been there, spent hours combing the neighborhood for him.

David Dangerfield, a member of the Rescue Five firefighter unit, was in the frigid water for about two hours combing the wreckage.