rub up
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: rubs up
form: rubbing up
form: rubbed up
form: rubbed up
Senses: examples: text: I rubbed up the brass buttons on my jacket to make them shine.
text: The pitcher rubs up the new baseball with dirt to get a better grip.
text: Stains that come not by Grease are taken out by boiling Lemon-peel in Small-beer, with a little Copperas, till it be very strong of them: then with a hard Brush rub up the place with it,
ref: 1695, William Salmon, The Family Dictionary, London: H. Rhodes:
text: Here’s a new guest for you; so clean up your house, rub up the mohogany table […]
ref: 1786, John O’Keeffe, Patrick in Russia, Dublin, act I, page 11:
text: […] my next [aim was] to rub it [Moor-House] up with beeswax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it glitters again;
ref: 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter VIII, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume III, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 183:
text: [T]here’s all the silver to be rubbed up yet […]
ref: 1909 September, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, “A Wedding at the Stone House”, in Anne of Avonlea, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, →OCLC, page 360:
glosses: To polish or scrub; to cover (something with a substance) by rubbing.
examples: text: […] every Morning when you Comb your head, dip a sponge in this water and rub up your Hair, and it will keep it clean and preserve it,
ref: 1674, Hannah Woolley, A Supplement to The Queen-like Closet, London: Richard Lownds, page 9:
text: Bush’s handlers dragged him into his corner [of the boxing ring] and rubbed him up, not working very hard at it.
ref: 1929, Dashiell Hammett, chapter 9, in Red Harvest, New York, N.Y.: Knopf:
glosses: To rub (a body part): to massage, give a massage to.
examples: text: to rub up a lather
text: The new shoe rubbed up a blister on the back of his foot.
glosses: To create (something) by rubbing.
examples: text: I muſt rub up my balancing, and chaſing, and boring.
ref: 1775 January 17 (first performance), [Richard Brinsley Sheridan], The Rivals, a Comedy. […], London: […] John Wilkie, […], published 1775, →OCLC, Act III, scene [iv], page 54:
text: [Y]ou will have a nice quiet day to rest after the journey and rub up your German.
ref: 1915 October 18, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “The Little Governess”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 239:
text: [Y]ou'll have to rub up on the other sort of navigation now. How long is it since you used a sextant?
ref: 1951, Nicholas Monsarrat, The Cruel Sea, New York, N.Y.: Knopf, Part 5, p. 364:
synonyms: bone up
brush up
review
revise
glosses: To revive one's knowledge of (something); to renew (a skill).
examples: text: There was a lot of yelling and gesticulating, and a few blows were passed. A couple of guards got rubbed up a little.
ref: 1952, Chester Himes, chapter 11, in Cast the First Stone,, New York, N.Y.: Signet, page 107:
synonyms: rough up
glosses: To assault (someone).
examples: text: to rub up pigments with water or oil
text: [T]hose Europeans, that use their Chocolate ready rubb’d up […]
ref: 1697, William Dampier, chapter III, in A New Voyage Round the World. […], London: […] James Knapton, […], →OCLC, page 60:
text: [The bursar] poured out a glass of sherry into a tumbler, and rubbed it up with an egg and a little sugar.
ref: 1843, J. Hewlett, chapter 23, in College Life; or, The Proctor’s Notebook,, volume 1, London: Henry Colburn, page 253:
text: [Crude mercury] may be concealed in a pill by rubbing it up with anything of which you can make a paste fit for pills;
ref: 1943, Charles Wortham Brook, Carlile and the Surgeons, Glasgow: Strickland Press, page 23:
glosses: To reduce (something) to a powder or paste using friction (with a mortar and pestle, for example); to mix (with something) using friction.
examples: text: to rub up the memory; to rub up old sores
text: They desire a dead Minister, that would not rub up their consciences,
ref: 1640, James Ussher, Eighteen Sermons Preached in Oxford, London, published 1660, page 128:
text: It’s a vexation to them when they would sleep securely, to have their consciences rubbing up and reviving their fears.
ref: 1681, Thomas Manton, One Hundred and Ninety Sermons on the Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm, London: T. P., Sermon 102, p. 629:
text: Sir Will. What do you mean Gentlemen? / Emil. Only to rub up you[r] Courage a little.
ref: 1702, Susanna Centlivre, The Beau’s Duel, London: D. Brown and N. Cox, act III, page 30:
text: [L]est I should be negligent, Mr. Garrick sent for me to rub up my attention, fearing I might like a lazy centinel sleep on my post:
ref: 1790, Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs of His Own Life, volume 2, York, N.Y., page 134:
glosses: To excite or awaken (something); to revive or reawaken (something).
Related terms: rub down
rub up against
rub up on
rub up the wrong way