• (British) IPA: /ɹʌb/, [ɹɐb], enPR: rŭb
• (America) IPA: /ɹʌb/, enPR: rŭb

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 ↗, [Act III, scene i]:

     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.

3. (archaic) A quip or sarcastic remark.
4. In the game of crown green bowls, any obstacle by which a bowl is diverted from its normal course.
5. 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

• French: friction
• Italian: strofinamento
• Portuguese: fricção
• Spanish: frotación

• French: hic

rub (rubs, present participle rubbing; past and past participle rubbed)

1. (transitive) To move (one object) while maintaining contact with another object over some area, with pressure and friction.

   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.

   • 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

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 1”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     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

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

7. To hinder; to cross; to thwart.
   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, 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 ↗, [Act 2, scene ii]:

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

8. (transitive, bowls) To touch the jack with the bowl.

• French: frotter
• German: reiben
• Italian: strofinare, fregare
• Portuguese: esfregar
• Russian: тере́ть
• Spanish: frotar

• French: frotter
• German: reiben, abreiben
• Spanish: frotar

• German: sich abreiben, sich abscheuern, sich ablaufen
• Portuguese: raspado

• German: einreiben

• French: frotter, polir
• German: polieren, aufpolieren, putzen

rub (plural rubs)

1. (protein) Any of a group of proteins similar to ubiquitin
2. Initialism of rich urban biker