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Scrub   /skrəb/   Listen
noun
Scrub  n.  
1.
One who labors hard and lives meanly; a mean fellow. "A sorry scrub." "We should go there in as proper a manner as possible; nor altogether like the scrubs about us."
2.
Something small and mean.
3.
A worn-out brush.
4.
A thicket or jungle, often specified by the name of the prevailing plant; as, oak scrub, palmetto scrub, etc.
5.
(Stock Breeding) One of the common live stock of a region of no particular breed or not of pure breed, esp. when inferior in size, etc. (U.S.)
6.
Vegetation of inferior quality, though sometimes thick and impenetrable, growing in poor soil or in sand; also, brush; called also scrub brush. See Brush, above. (Australia & South Africa)
7.
(Forestry) A low, straggling tree of inferior quality.
Scrub bird (Zool.), an Australian passerine bird of the family Atrichornithidae, as Atrichia clamosa; called also brush bird.
Scrub oak (Bot.), the popular name of several dwarfish species of oak. The scrub oak of New England and the Middle States is Quercus ilicifolia, a scraggy shrub; that of the Southern States is a small tree (Quercus Catesbaei); that of the Rocky Mountain region is Quercus undulata, var. Gambelii.
Scrub robin (Zool.), an Australian singing bird of the genus Drymodes.


verb
Scrub  v. t.  (past & past part. scrubbed; pres. part. scrubbing)  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; as, to scrub a floor, a doorplate.


Scrub  v. i.  To rub anything hard, especially with a wet brush; to scour; hence, to be diligent and penurious; as, to scrub hard for a living.


adjective
Scrub  adj.  Mean; dirty; contemptible; scrubby. "How solitary, how scrub, does this town look!" "No little scrub joint shall come on my board."
Scrub game, a game, as of ball, by unpracticed players.
Scrub race, a race between scrubs, or between untrained animals or contestants.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Scrub" Quotes from Famous Books



... slopes, and quietest of rivers. She meets the little set of Concord people: Mr. Alcott, for whom she does not share Mr. Emerson's enthusiasm; and William Ellery Channing, whose figure stands out like a gnarled and twisted scrub-oak,—a pathetic, impossible creature, whose cranks and oddities were submitted to on account of an innate nobility of character. "Generally crabbed and reticent with strangers, he took a liking to me," says ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... voice of determined gentleness, "just listen to me. Would I ask you to do anything that wouldn't be for your happiness? I have found a real pretty house up on Fifteenth Street; and we'll keep house together, just as cosey; and have a woman come to wash and iron and scrub, so it won't be a bit hard; and be right on the street-cars; and you won't have to drudge helping Mrs. Carleton extra times ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... light a fire even at night, as it might have attracted the blacks; therefore they took it in turn to sleep and watch when the others rested; while the dingoes sneaked from their cover in the belts of scrub, and ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... cluster by a bench before the cookhouse, dabble their faces and hands in washbasins, scrub themselves promiscuously on towels, sometimes one at each end of a single piece of cloth, hauling it back and ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... about Jack Denver. He was on the committees at agricultural shows and sports, great at picnics and dances, beloved by school children at school feasts (I wonder if they call them feasts still), giver of extra or special prizes, mostly sovs. and half-sovs., for foot races, etc.; leading spirit for the scrub district in electioneering campaigns—they went as right as men could go in the politics of those days who watched and went the way Jack Denver went; header of subscription lists for burnt-out, flooded-out, sick, hurt, dead or killed or otherwise knocked-out ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson


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