# scrub
## English
### Pronunciation

* enPR: skrŭb, IPA: /skɹʌb/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* (Northern England, Ireland) IPA: /skɹʊb/
* Rhymes: -ʌb

### Etymology 1

Late Middle English in the sense of "stunted tree," a variant of shrub, possibly under Old Norse influence.

#### Adjective

scrub (comparative more scrub, superlative most scrub)
* Mean; dirty; contemptible; scrubby.
** 1743, Horace Walpole, letter to Sir Horace Mann:How solitary, how scrub, does this town look!
** 1729, Jonathan Swift, The Grand Question Debated of Hamilton's Bawn:No little scrub joint shall come on my board.

#### Noun

scrub (countable and uncountable, plural scrubs)
* (uncountable) A thicket or jungle, often specified by the name of the prevailing plant.
    oak scrub
** 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.
* (uncountable) Vegetation judged to be of inferior quality or of little use to humans, though sometimes thick and impenetrable, growing in poor soil or in sand; also, brush.
* (countable, US, stock breeding) One of the common livestock of a region of no particular breed or not of pure breed, especially when inferior in size, etc.; particularly a male animal poorly suited for breeding.
* (countable, derogatory) One who labors hard and lives meanly; a mean fellow.
** 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress:A sorry scrub, said Mr. High-mind.
** 1766, Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield:We should go there in as proper a manner possible; nor altogether like the scrubs about us.
** 1999, TLC (band), "No Scrubs" (song)
    A scrub is a guy that thinks he's fly And is also known as a buster Always talkin' about what he wants And just sits on his broke ass […]
* (countable, slang, derogatory) One who is incompetent or unable to complete easy tasks.
    Wow, she really scored 0? What a scrub!
* (countable, sports, slang) One not on the first team of players; a substitute.
* (countable, online gaming, slang, derogatory) A player who whines when outmatched by other players, sometimes by blaming the game mechanics or even accusing the other players of cheating.

##### Derived terms

* scrub brush
* scrubby
* scrub jay
* scrub turpentine
* vine scrub

##### Derived terms

* brigalow scrub
* scrubbable
* scrub baseball
* scrub bird
* scrub board
* scrub dasher
* scrub game
* scrub gun
* scrub hare
* scrubland
* scrub oak
* scrub pine
* scrub race
* scrub rider
* scrub robin
* scrub turkey
* scrub typhus
* scrub wallaby
* streaked scrub warbler
* trail ridge scrub grasshopper

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

From Middle English scrobben (“groom a horse with a currycomb”); from Middle Dutch schrobben (“clean by scrubbing”).

#### Verb

scrub (third-person singular simple present scrubs, present participle scrubbing, simple past and past participle scrubbed)
* (transitive) To rub hard; to wash with rubbing; usually, to rub with a wet brush, or with something coarse or rough, for the purpose of cleaning or brightening
    to scrub a floor
    to scrub your fingernails
* (intransitive) To rub anything hard, especially with a wet brush; to scour
* (intransitive, figuratively) To be diligent and penurious
    to scrub hard for a living
* (transitive) To call off a scheduled event; to cancel.
    Engineers had to scrub the satellite launch due to bad weather.
* (databases, transitive) To eliminate or to correct data from a set of records to bring it inline with other similar datasets
    The street segment data from the National Post Office will need to be scrubbed before it can be integrated into our system.
* (audio) To move a recording tape back and forth with a scrubbing motion to produce a scratching sound, or to do so by a similar use of a control on an editing system.
* (audio, video) To maneuver the play position on a media editing system by using a scroll bar or touch-based interface.
    Synonym: seek

##### Derived terms

* scrubbed
* scrubber
* scrubbing
* scrub down
* scrub in
* scrub off
* scrub out
* scrub up

##### Translations
#### Noun

scrub (plural scrubs)
* An instance of scrubbing.
* A cancellation.
** 1988, AIAA 26th Aerospace Sciences Meeting: January 11-14:Unacceptable winds aloft caused four scrubs and one hold; adverse weather caused a scrub; […]
* A worn-out brush.
** 1752, Robert Ainsworth, Thesaurus Linguae Latinae Compendiarius:A scrub [broom worn out] Scopa detrita.
* One who scrubs.
    Coordinate term: scrubber
* That which scrubs.
    Coordinate term: scrubber
** An exfoliant for the body.
* (medicine, in the plural) Clothing worn while performing surgery.
* (by extension, in the plural) Any medical uniform consisting of a short-sleeved shirt and pants (trousers).
** 2014, Jeff Jacobson, Growth, page 23:A man dressed as a lab tech, his blue scrubs startlingly pale against the vivid red and black chaos, moved into sight from behind the SUV. He carried an assault rifle.
* (slang, obsolete) Informal attire or dress code; morning dress
** 1876, “Hightum, Titum, and Scrub!”, in The Leisure Hour‎:The third, which was as homely as its name, and which she reserved for scouring the country and such like rough usage in quite private rural life, was her "Scrub."
** 1920, E. F. Benson, Queen Lucia‎:For one of Lucia's quaint ideas was to divide dresses into three classes, "Hightum," "Tightum" and "Scrub."

##### Synonyms

* (clothing worn during surgery): surgical gown

##### Derived terms

* bug scrub
* hand scrub
* scrub nurse

##### Translations
### Anagrams

* curbs

## Middle English
### Noun

scrub
* Alternative form of schrub