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Rub up   /rəb əp/   Listen
verb
Rub  v. t.  (past & past part. rubbed; pres. part. rubbing)  
1.
To subject (a body) to the action of something moving over its surface with pressure and friction, especially to the action of something moving back and forth; as, to rub the flesh with the hand; to rub wood with sandpaper. "It shall be expedient, after that body is cleaned, to rub the body with a coarse linen cloth."
2.
To move over the surface of (a body) with pressure and friction; to graze; to chafe; as, the boat rubs the ground.
3.
To cause (a body) to move with pressure and friction along a surface; as, to rub the hand over the body. "Two bones rubbed hard against one another."
4.
To spread a substance thinly over; to smear. "The smoothed plank,... New rubbed with balm."
5.
To scour; to burnish; to polish; to brighten; to cleanse; often with up or over; as, to rub up silver. "The whole business of our redemption is to rub over the defaced copy of the creation."
6.
To hinder; to cross; to thwart. (R.) "'T is the duke's pleasure, Whose disposition, all the world well knows, Will not be rubbed nor stopped."
To rub down.
(a)
To clean by rubbing; to comb or curry; as, to down a horse.
(b)
To reduce or remove by rubbing; as, to rub down the rough points.
To rub off, to clean anything by rubbing; to separate by friction; as, to rub off rust.
To rub out, to remove or separate by friction; to erase; to obliterate; as, to rub out a mark or letter; to rub out a stain.
To rub up.
(a)
To burnish; to polish; to clean.
(b)
To excite; to awaken; to rouse to action; as, to rub up the memory.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Rub up" Quotes from Famous Books



... [cause to remember] remind; suggest &c. (inform ) 527; prompt; put in mind, keep in mind, bring to mind; fan the embers; call up, summon up, rip up; renew; infandum renovare dolorem [Lat]; jog the memory, flap the memory, refresh the memory, rub up the memory, awaken the memory; pull by the sleeve; bring back to the memory, put in remembrance, memorialize. task the memory, tax the memory. get at one's fingers' ends, have at one's fingers', learn at one's fingers', know one's lesson, say one's lesson, repeat ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to rub up against all sorts of people. You don't come to realize what living means till you've seen what the rest of them are up to. Cotton-wool isn't the environment to bring ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... rub up my acquaintance in that quarter," said Roscorla, "before I leave again. Fortunately, I have always kept up my club subscription; and you'll come and dine with me, Sir Percy, won't you, when I get ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... the days when the Chinese first began to show their suspicion, contempt, and fear of foreigners, and their interpretation of the motives and purposes which took them to the Celestial Empire; it would take too much space. But if we of the West did our part to-day, as we rub up against the Chinese everywhere, in charitably taking him at his best, things would alter much more speedily that they are doing. Because the Chinese bristles with contradictions and seemingly unanswerable conundrums, we immediately dub him a barbarian, do not endeavor to understand him, do ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... answer, but proceeded to divest himself of his rusty outside coat, and to rub up his stiff, grizzled, bristly, uncombed hair with both his hands, as was his wont when he was not quite satisfied with the ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope


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