rub
Noun pluralrubs
Pluralrubs
- 1To move one object back and forth against another while keeping them in contact, with pressure and friction.
She rubbed her temples slowly, trying to ease the headache.
Rub the wax over the wood in small circles until the surface gleams.
Similarmassage, stroke, knead, scrub
Note
Either object can be the one named first. You rub the moving thing over a surface (the cloth over the glass), or you rub the surface with it. T. K.'s The Kitchin-Physician (1680) tells readers to rub their teeth "with a clean course cloth, rubbing off the slime." Against suits one body meeting another, as a cat rubs itself against a leg. Together suits a pair, as with hands rubbed together for warmth. Off names what comes away.
- 2To move against another surface with pressure and friction.
The fan blade rubs against its housing and makes a faint clicking sound.
Brake pads rub on the wheel rim to slow the bicycle.
Similarscrape, chafe, grind, grate
Note
With no object at all, the verb usually means chafing. Shoes that are beginning to rub are rubbing the wearer's skin, and the complaint needs no further words. When the contact needs naming, against or on supplies it. That small shift in grammar is what separates this sense from the transitive verb, where someone does the rubbing.
- 3
- 4A difficulty or problem that complicates a situation or plan.
Like the fine print in a contract: the one detail where the whole deal gets complicated.
The design is brilliant; the rub is that no factory can build it cheaply.
Therein lies the rub: the merger needs approval from regulators in three countries.
Similarcatch, problem, snag, difficulty, hitch
Note
William Shakespeare's Hamlet fixed this sense in the language with "Ay, there's the rub!" It still usually arrives with the definite article, naming the single sticking point in an otherwise workable plan. James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) has "how to get there was the rub." In the plural it shrinks to ordinary setbacks, the "little rubs" of Sheridan Le Fanu's The House by the Churchyard (1863). The image is generally traced to the bowler's obstacle that turns a bowl off its line.
- 5A mixture of spices applied to the surface of meat before it is barbecued.
He pressed a brown-sugar rub into the brisket the night before the cookout.
Her rub combines paprika, cumin, garlic powder, and a pinch of cayenne.
Similarseasoning
- 6
- 7To spread a substance thinly over something; to smear.
Rub a thin coat of oil onto the blade to keep it from rusting.
He rubbed sunscreen across the kids' shoulders before they ran back into the surf.
Similarspread, smear, apply, massage
Note
The substance can be the object or sit in a with-phrase: you rub oil onto a blade, or a blade is rubbed with oil. The passive participle is especially common. John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) has a plank "new rubbed with balm." The cook's meat rubbed with spices is exactly what the barbecue spice mix is made for.
- 8To scour, polish, brighten, or cleanse; often used with up or over.
Rub the brass up before the guests arrive.
He rubbed over the scuffed leather until the marks faded into the grain.
Similarpolish, scour, burnish, buff, shine
Note
Here the friction serves the surface, and the particles do much of the work. Silver is rubbed up to a shine, and a worn surface is rubbed over to clean or restore it. The image stretches easily to renewal. Robert South, in Man Created in God's Image (before 1716), called redemption an effort "to rub over the defaced copy of the creation."
- 9To hinder, cross, or thwart a person, plan, or purpose.
Every scheme the minister laid was rubbed by rivals at court.
Let no small doubt rub our purpose now that we have begun.
Similarthwart, hinder, frustrate, foil, obstruct
Note
Shakespeare's verb for being balked. In King Lear the duke's disposition "will not be rubbed nor stopped," pairing it with a plainer word for the same check. It turns the noun for a sticking point into an action. It now reads as literary and chiefly Shakespearean; in ordinary prose, thwart or cross carry the meaning without the period flavor.
- 10In crown green bowls, any obstacle that diverts a bowl from its normal course.
A rub near the ditch carried his bowl a foot wide of the jack.
She blamed the loss on an unlucky rub halfway up the green.
Note
The bowler's noun is about accident. A rub is whatever the green throws in a bowl's way, not a shot the player makes. It is easily muddled with the verb for touching the jack, which describes how a bowl ends its run. A bowl can meet a rub halfway up the green and never rub the jack at all.
- 11In bowls, to touch the jack with one's bowl.
His final wood rubbed the jack and settled a hand's width away.
Some players try to rub the jack on purpose and nudge it toward their own bowls.
Similartouch, kiss, graze, brush
Note
Contact with the jack matters in bowls because of what follows from it: in lawn bowls a bowl that rubs the jack is chalked as a toucher and stays live even if it finishes in the ditch. Keep it apart from the noun for a diverting obstacle, the crown green word for whatever knocks a bowl off its line. The verb names a touch on the target, and the noun names an interference on the way.
- 12A sum of money lent or borrowed; a loan.
Any chance of a rub till Friday? I'm skint until we get paid.
He touched his messmate for a rub of five pounds before shore leave.
Similarloan
Note
Service slang from the British navy for money borrowed, typically a small, informal sum between shipmates to last until pay. Outside that company it will puzzle most listeners, who are likelier to hear a massage or the "difficulty" sense. In writing it works best as period or service color, in a request such as a rub until payday.
Less common meanings
- 13To move or pass along with difficulty; to get by.
They rubbed through the hard months on salt pork and thin soup.
We shall rub along well enough until the harvest comes in.
Similarscrape, struggle, manage, cope, muddle
Note
A dated verb of slow, effortful progress. It can describe physical passage, as when huntsmen rub through woods, or simply getting by in hard times. It survives mostly in particle combinations such as rub along and rub through, meaning to manage or keep going. On its own it now sounds old-fashioned, so it suits period dialogue better than plain modern prose.
- 14A quip or sarcastic remark.
Each rub from the old wit drew laughter around the dinner table.
The pamphlet was full of sly rubs at the minister and his friends.
Note
A word for the verbal jab that has dropped out of everyday speech. The image is friction turned social: a remark that chafes. It belongs in historical fiction or deliberately old-fashioned prose. In current English the same thing is a dig or a jab, and a modern reader meeting "a rub at the minister" may well hear the "difficulty" meaning instead.
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Practice
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Origin
Inherited from Middle English rubben, of unknown origin, possibly from Proto-Germanic *rubbōną, related to *reufaną ("to tear"). It has cognates in several Germanic languages, such as German Low German rubben and Danish rubbe, both meaning "to rub" or "scrub".