rub out
See also: rubout
English
Verb
rub out (third-person singular simple present rubs out, present participle rubbing out, simple past and past participle rubbed out)
- (transitive) To delete or erase or remove (something) by rubbing.
- The teacher wanted to rub out the chalk marks on the blackboard.
- (obsolete) To get by; to live.
- 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 54, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:
- The first will understand but little of them, the latter over much; they might perhaps live and rub out in the middle region.
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- (transitive, criminal slang) To kill, especially to murder.
- 1942, James Thurber, The Catbird Seat:
- It was just a week to the day since Mr. Martin had decided to rub out Mrs. Ulgine Barrows.
- 2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN:
- 'Mr Grimaldi,' fills in Smoke, 'what I believe Fay has too much tact to spit out and say is this: the Rey woman might be imagining we rubbed out Dr Sixsmith.'
- 1942, James Thurber, The Catbird Seat:
Usage notes
- In both transitive senses the object may appear before or after the particle. If the object is a pronoun, then it must be before the particle.
Synonyms
- kill [⇒ thesaurus]
Translations
delete or erase by rubbing
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kill
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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See also
- rub one out