rub

From Middle English rubben. Cognate with Saterland Frisian rubje (“to rub, scrape”), German Low German rubben (“to rub”), Low German rubblig (“rough, uneven”), Dutch robben, rubben (“to rub smooth; scrape; scrub”), Danish rubbe (“to rub, scrub”), Icelandic and Norwegian rubba (“to scrape”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɹʌb/, [ɹɐb], enPR: rŭb
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɹʌb/, enPR: rŭb

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌb

rub (plural rubs)

1. An act of rubbing.

   Give that lamp a good rub and see if any genies come out

2. A difficulty or problem.
   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals):

     III.i.71-75

     To die, to sleep—/To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub!/For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,/When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,/Must give us pause

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[[Episode 16]]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare & Co.; Sylvia Beach, OCLC 560090630; republished London: Published for the Egoist Press, London by John Rodker, Paris, October 1922, OCLC 2297483:

     […] the propriety of the cabman's shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt bridge where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub.

   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard

     'My dear Devereux, I say, you mustn't talk in that wild way. You—you talk like a ruined man!'
     'And I so comfortable!'
     'Why, to be sure, Dick, you have had some little rubs, and, maybe, your follies and your vexations; but, hang it, you are young; you can't get experience—at least, so I've found it—without paying for it. […] '

3. In the game of crown green bowls: any obstacle by which a bowl is diverted from its normal course.
4. Any substance designed to be applied by rubbing.

   a heat rub intended for muscular strains

   1. A mixture of spices applied to meat before it is barbecued.

• (a difficulty or problem): hitch, hiccup, catch, kink, glitch, snag

rub (third-person singular simple present rubs, present participle rubbing, simple past and past participle rubbed)

1. (transitive) To move (one object) while maintaining contact with another object over some area, with pressure and friction.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 7, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     “[…] This is Mr. Churchill, who, as you are aware, is good enough to come to us for his diaconate, and, as we hope, for much longer; and being a gentleman of independent means, he declines to take any payment.” Saying this Walden rubbed his hands together and smiled contentedly.

   I rubbed the cloth over the glass.

   The cat rubbed itself against my leg.

   I rubbed my hands together for warmth.

2. (transitive) To rub something against (a second thing).

   I rubbed the glass with the cloth.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir T. Elyot

     It shall be expedient, after that body is cleaned, to rub the body with a coarse linen cloth.

3. (intransitive) To be rubbed against something.

   My shoes are beginning to rub.

4. (transitive) To spread a substance thinly over; to smear.

   meat rubbed with spices before barbecuing

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     The smoothed plank, […] / New rubbed with balm.

5. (dated) To move or pass with difficulty.

   to rub through woods, as huntsmen

6. To scour; to burnish; to polish; to brighten; to cleanse; often with up or over.

   to rub up silver

   • (Can we date this quote?) South

     The whole business of our redemption is to rub over the defaced copy of the creation.

7. To hinder; to cross; to thwart.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     'Tis the duke's pleasure, / Whose disposition, all the world well knows, / Will not be rubbed nor stopped.

• rub in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• rub in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• rub at OneLook Dictionary Search

• bru, bur, bur-

From Proto-Slavic *rǫbъ (“something which was cut”), from *rǫbati (“to cut, chop”).[1]

• IPA^(key): /rup/
• Rhymes: -up
• Homophone: rup

rub m

1. back (the reverse side)

   rub karty -- back of the card

   rub mince -- reverse of the coin

2. the other (often negative) aspect of a situation

• líc

• naruby

• vzhůru nohama
• rubat
• rub on the Czech Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^cs

• rubaj

• IPA^(key): [rup]

rub

1. second-person singular imperative of rubaś

Borrowed from English rub.

rub m (genitive singular rub, plural rubbyn)

1. rub

rub (verbal noun rubbey or rubbal)

1. to rub

From Proto-Slavic *rǫbъ.

• IPA^(key): /rûːb/

rȗb m (Cyrillic spelling ру̑б)

1. rim
2. edge, brink