rubber
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɹʌbə/
ipa: /ˈɹʌbɚ/
ipa: /ˈɹɐbə/
ipa: /ˈɹʊbə/
ipa: /ˈɹʊbəɹ/
ipa: /ˈɹʌbəɹ/
note: Indic
ipa: /ˈrəbbə(r)/
rhymes: -ʌbə(ɹ)
Forms: form: rubbers
Etymology: From rub + -er.
The sense of the substance comes from its ability to function as an eraser, displacing earlier caoutchouc. The senses not having to do with rubbing or erasing are secondarily derived from the name of the substance.
Senses: synonyms: natural rubber
glosses: Pliable material derived from the sap of the rubber tree; a hydrocarbon biopolymer of isoprene.
glosses: Natural rubber or any of various synthetic materials with similar properties as natural rubber.
examples: text: For example, they may use paddle pop sticks, hand span, pencils, rubbers, mathematics equipment (i.e. base 10 material) or anything else the teacher can find to measure the lengths of nominated objects.
ref: 2006, Lisa Kervin, Research for Educators, page 148:
text: Drawing materials, he thought, I used to love drawing as a lad. I can afford some plain paper and pencils, surely? And a rubber, too. He smiled at the memory of an elderly uncle, also fond of drawing, who′d always called rubbers ‘lead eaters’.
ref: 2010, Anna Jacobs, Beyond the Sunset, unnumbered page:
text: Stan stole a diary and some pens, pencils, ink and rubbers during his early days as a POW working on the Singapore docks.
ref: 2011, Patrick Lindsay, The Spirit of the Digger, Revised edition, unnumbered page:
glosses: An eraser.
examples: text: And the rubbers you hide / In your top left pocket
ref: 1979, “At Home He's A Tourist”, in Entertainment!, performed by Gang of Four:
text: Don't have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don't have sex in the missionary position, don't have sex standing up, just don't do it, OK, promise? OK, now everybody take some rubbers.
ref: 2004, Tina Fey, Mean Girls (motion picture), spoken by Coach Carr (Dwayne Hill):
text: My daddy said "Treat young girls like your mother" / My momma said "Trust no hoe, use a rubber"
ref: 2019, “Ricky”, performed by Denzel Curry:
synonyms: word: condom
word: cum catcher
word: rubber
glosses: A condom, especially an external condom.
examples: text: What perplexity plagues the chin-rubber in the foreground and what so discourages the man leaning on the lamp post? And to what doom is the large man at right moving? Photographer Cowherd has no answers.
ref: 1949 July 11, LIFE, page 21:
glosses: Someone or something which rubs.
glosses: Someone or something which rubs.
One who rubs down horses.
examples: text: I curl his perriwig, paint his cheeks, perfume his breath; I am his froterer or rubber in a hot-house
ref: 1601 (date written), Iohn Marston [i.e., John Marston], What You Will, London: […] G[eorge] Eld, for Thomas Thorppe, published 1607, →OCLC, (please specify the page):
glosses: Someone or something which rubs.
One who practises massage.
glosses: Someone or something which rubs.
A coarse towel for rubbing the body.
glosses: Someone or something which rubs.
An abrasive for rubbing with: a whetstone, file, or emery cloth, etc.
glosses: The cushion of an electric machine.
examples: text: Jones toes the rubber and then fires to the plate.
topics: ball-games
baseball
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
synonyms: pitcher's plate
pitcher's rubber
glosses: The rectangular pad on the pitcher's mound from which the pitcher must pitch.
examples: text: Johnny, don't forget your rubbers today.
text: He set aside his aunt’s counsel in regard to a better regimen, as well as her more specific hints, made in view of the near approach of rough weather, that he provide himself with rubbers and an umbrella, even if he would not hear of a rain-coat.
ref: 1919, Henry B[lake] Fuller, “Cope Goes A-Sailing”, in Bertram Cope’s Year: A Novel, Chicago, Ill.: Ralph Fletcher Seymour, The Alderbrink Press, →OCLC, page 154:
glosses: Water-resistant shoe covers, galoshes, overshoes.
examples: text: Jones enters the pits to get new rubber.
glosses: Tires, particularly racing tires.
examples: text: The British barges, off New-London, sometimes meet with the rubbers. In an attack upon an armed smack, some days ago, they were beaten off, with the reported loss of 8 men killed.
ref: 1814, The Weekly Register, volume 5, page 302:
text: 'Twas a bit gone December, / As I well remember, / I met with a rubber, and got some advice; […]
ref: 1843, John Castillo, Awd Isaac: The Steeple Chase, and Other Poems, page 101:
glosses: A hardship or misfortune.
Derived terms: blue rubber
blue rubber bleb nevus syndrome
burn rubber
butyl rubber
cold rubber
crepe rubber
crumb rubber
cyclorubber
flubber
foam rubber
hard rubber
hog rubber
hog-rubber
I'm rubber and you're glue
India rubber
india rubber
lay rubber
metal rubber
methyl rubber
nanorubber
natural rubber
nitrile rubber
nonrubber
Pará rubber tree
peel rubber
putty rubber
rubber baby buggy bumper
rubber ball blast grenade
rubber-band
rubber band
rubber band airplane
rubber boa
rubber bullet
rubber cement
rubber check
rubber cheque
rubber chicken
rubber diaper
rubber duck
rubber-duck
rubber duck debugging
rubber-ducked
rubber ducked
rubber duckie
rubber-ducking
rubber ducking
rubber ducky
rubber eel
rubberer
rubberful
rubber gauge
rubberhead
rubber heels
rubber hose
rubber-hose
rubber-hose cryptanalysis
rubberise
rubberish
rubberism
rubberist
rubberization
rubberize
rubber johnny
rubber jungle
rubberless
rubberlike
rubber-necker
rubberoid
rubberous
rubber panties
rubber pants
rubber plant
rubber policeman
rubber ring
rubber room
rubber saw
rubber science
rubber shoe
rubber shoes
rubber stamp
rubber-stamp
rubber stamp politics
rubber tapper
rubber tramp
rubber tramping
rubber tree
rubber up
rubber vine
rubberwear
rubberwood
rubbery
silicone rubber
silicon rubber
the rubber hits the road
the rubber meets the road
toe the rubber
unsinkable rubber duck
up your nose with a rubber hose