scrubbed

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of scrub.

   She scrubbed the pot with steel wool to get the burned rice off.

   The editor scrubbed back through the footage to find the moment the door opened.

   Note

   Past tense and past participle share one spelling, with the b of scrub doubled before -ed, as in rubbed. Floors and pots are scrubbed clean, but a launch or a meeting can be scrubbed too, meaning called off, and that use often turns up in the passive: the mission was scrubbed.

2. 2
   adjective

   Cleaned by being scrubbed.

   Freshly scrubbed potatoes went straight into the oven with their skins on.

   Visitors were shown into a spotless, scrubbed kitchen that smelled of bleach.

   Similarclean, washed

   Oppositedirty, unwashed

3. 3
   adjective

   Having washed one's hands by operating-room protocol and put on a sterile gown and sterile gloves.

   Once scrubbed, the surgeon kept her hands above her waist and away from anything unsterile.

   A scrubbed technician passed instruments across the sterile field.

   Note

   Operating-room language splits the team in two. Scrubbed staff work inside the sterile field, handling the instruments and the prepared patient; unscrubbed, or circulating, staff fetch and open supplies without touching anything sterile. It is a yes-or-no status, so it takes no more or most: a nurse is either scrubbed or not.

4. 4
   adjective

   Rubbed hard, as with a brush or cloth, to make it clean.

   The kitchen had a long scrubbed pine table, pale and worn smooth at the edges.

   After an hour with a wire brush, the scrubbed hull showed bare metal in patches.

5. 5
   adjective

   Stunted or undersized in growth.

   A line of scrubbed oaks clung to the ridge, bent low by years of wind.

   The scrubbed cattle of the dry upland were half the size of the valley herds.

   Similarstunted, scrubby, undersized

   Note

   This scrubbed belongs with scrubby, not with soap and water: it describes trees or animals that never reached full size. It is spelled exactly like the cleaning word, so the noun it goes with does the work: a scrubbed pine table has been washed, while a scrubbed pine on a windy ridge has been stunted.

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