To combine means to join two or more things together to make something new or stronger. When you combine flour, eggs, and sugar, you make cookie dough. When a football team combines a strong defense with a fast offense, they become much harder to beat.

You can combine ingredients in cooking, combine ideas to solve a problem, or combine your allowance with your sister's to buy something neither of you could afford alone. Scientists combine chemicals in experiments. Writers combine words to create sentences. Musicians combine notes to make chords.

Notice that combining usually creates something different from the separate parts. When you combine red and blue paint, you get purple, not just red next to blue. When friends combine their strengths on a group project, one person's research skills plus another's artistic talent plus a third person's organizing ability creates something better than any could make alone.

Combine can also be a noun (pronounced COM-bine), meaning a large farm machine that harvests grain. It got this name because it combines several jobs: cutting the stalks, separating the grain, and cleaning it, all in one pass through the field.