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Rubbing   /rˈəbɪŋ/   Listen
Rubbing

noun
1.
The resistance encountered when one body is moved in contact with another.  Synonym: friction.
2.
Representation consisting of a copy (as of an engraving) made by laying paper over something and rubbing it with charcoal.
3.
Effort expended in moving one object over another with pressure.  Synonyms: detrition, friction.



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"Rubbing" Quotes from Famous Books



... 10,000 Prussians are in a wood near Villejuif, where they have been driven by the French. As they in the most cowardly manner decline to come out of it, the wily Parisian braves are rubbing the outer circle of trees over with petroleum, as a preparatory step to burn them out. This veracious tale is believed ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... eager whinny at Ralph's footstep, pricked his pretty ears, and looked as full of life and spirit as if he had never had a hard day's gallop in his life. Sergeant Wells had given him a careful rubbing down while Ralph was at the telegraph office, and later, when the horses were thoroughly cool, they were watered at the running stream and given ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... resorting to unpleasant dieting and to barbarous applications of douches, packs and manual treatments. Isn't it more dignified and professional to write a Latin prescription? How much better the impression on the laity than soaking and rubbing!" ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees in a certain place, tossed by storms and winds, and rubbing their branches against one another, caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it subsided, they drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable standing ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... fouling thee, jumping the dips! As the coin of thy purse poured out: An animal's holiday past: And free of them thou, to begin a new bout; To start a fresh hunt on a resolute blast: No more an imp-ridden to bournes of eclipse: Having knowledge to spur thee, a gift to compare; Rubbing shoulder to shoulder, as only the book Of the world can be read, by necessity urged. For witness, what blinkers are they who look From the state of the prince or the millionnaire! They see but the fish they attract, The hungers on them converged; And never ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... would it fade from under my hand?" The room was intolerably close and there was a fly who persecuted me. As I lay there he came and settled on my hand. He waited, watching me with his wicked sneering eyes, then he crept forward, and waited again, rubbing his legs one against the other. Then very slyly, laughing to himself, he began to tickle me. I slashed with my hand at him, he flew into the air, sneering, then with a little "ping" settled on the back of my neck. I vowed that I would not mind him; ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... be bad any more, Muky," promised Wabigoon, rubbing himself gently. "That is, if we are, we'll whip ourselves again, ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood

... riding on slippery roads ever since I had that nasty spill, and hurt my elbow last winter," replied the other, rubbing his left arm tenderly at the same time, as though even the recollection after months had passed caused him to have tender memories of the pain he had endured. "Lucky it wasn't my right wing that got the crack, Hugh, because it sometimes feels sore even now, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson

... might be enlivened a bit, that a race meeting or a football match might be got up between teams from each army on the neutral ground at Intombi. The younger men received the idea of a football match with acclamation. "Ya, goot," said a young giant beside me, rubbing his big hands enthusiastically, "it will be the greatest football match that ever was played;" but an old burgher, with his left hand in a sling, bound up in dirty-looking bandages, interposed: "No; the only game we like to play now is the ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch

... the great strain of his year of nursing; and indeed throughout that period of his life no one knew when he slept, if ever. He was always up and dressed when anyone else was, and late at night we could look across and see his light still burning and know that he was rubbing Lottie's back or ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... to its present popularity in Christendom is probably one of the things past finding out. The Japanese, a very affectionate and sentimental people, do not practise kissing in any form; they regard the act, in fact, with an aversion matching our own aversion to the rubbing of noses. Nor is it in vogue among the Moslems, nor among the Chinese, who countenance it only as between mother and child. Even in parts of Christendom it is girt about by rigid taboos, so that its practise tends to be restricted to a few occasions. Two Frenchmen ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken

... much in the dark as yourself," returned Mr. Brimsdown, rubbing his brow thoughtfully. "I cannot make the faintest guess at the reason which called forth this letter. I know next to nothing of my late client's private life. He was a man of the utmost reticence in personal matters. My relations with him were ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... his fist, which was like a maul, to the back of his head, and, rubbing his neck with great seriousness, began to mutter. But he must rescue "his light." She herself had said that his turn had come. He will try all he can. But if something happens in spite of him? In every ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... marvellous ship sparkling white in the sun. She was made entirely of pure silver, with golden masts. The rigging was of silk, the sails of velvet, and the whole was enclosed in a casing of inpenetrable steel network. Niezguinek sprang down to the water's edge armed with his club, and rubbing his forehead with the diamond ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko

... the law of probabilities is applied in the case of the identification of persons "wanted" by the police. For example, the official description of an absconding forger runs as follows:—"He has a habit of rubbing his right thumb against the middle finger as if turning a ring. He frequently strokes his right eyebrow with right forefinger when engaged in writing; when perplexed, he bites his lower lip and clenches and ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn

... hysterically, "I thort I'd lost yer! I thort I'd lost all of it, I did! Strewth! I 'm glad I've found yer—" and she stopped, choking with her sobs and sniffs, rubbing her face in ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... you, Mr. Gray?" he said, rubbing his fat freckled hands. "I thought I would do myself the honour of coming round in person. I have just got a beauty of a frame, sir. Picked it up at a sale. Old Florentine. Came from Fonthill, I believe. Admirably suited for a religious subject, ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... amazons betake themselves to arts of peace. A tall woman, clad in a striped loin cloth, was rubbing corn between two big stones in a firm faith that eventually it would become meal. The miller is the curiosity of the realm, for she only has two husbands, both of whom, however, she saw fit to leave behind her in Africa to mind the babies. In ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')

... limner had been sitting up rubbing himself ruefully and staring about with a vacant gaze, which showed that he knew neither where he was nor what had occurred to him. Suddenly, however, a flash of intelligence had come over his sodden features, and he rose and staggered for the door. "'Ware the ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... days—when we are kind to the poor dumb policemen and don't dare wear straw hats after the first of September—and think about the good old college times, I wonder how we ever had the nerve to imitate insanity the way we did. Here I am, rubbing noses with thirty, outgrowing my belts every year, and sitting eight hours at a desk without exploding. Am I the chap who climbed up sixty feet of waterspout a few short years ago and persuaded the clapper of the college bell to come down with me? Here you are all worn smooth on top and proprietor ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... the Colonel was mounted seemed very happy in its new companionship. It turned its head to one side, and then to the other, and pranced and neighed, playfully biting at the mane of one horse, rubbing his nose against that of another, and in joyous gambols kicking up its heels. The Colonel was anxious to get out of the mess. But his little mustang was not at all disposed to move in that direction; neither ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... please," replied Maryllia; whereat the old postmistress breathed a sigh of relief. It would be easier to make out anything at all 'strange and uncommon' in pen and ink than in pencil-marks which had a trick of 'rubbing.' Leaning lightly against the counter Maryllia wrote in a ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... but he was bent on rubbing out the cloudy letters Laetitia had begun to spell, and he stammered, in a tone of matter-of-fact: "Just that and no better"; then turned ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... filled them, thinking of the last time, and many a time before that;—and she had at last come back to the sitting-room, long before anybody else was down stairs; the two tired servants were just rubbing their eyes open in the kitchen and speculating themselves awake. Leaving them, at their peril, to get ready a decent breakfast, (by the way she grudged them the old kitchen) Fleda set about trying what her wand could do towards brightening the face ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... do now the properties of a square or a triangle. Did we know the mechanical affections of the particles of rhubarb, hemlock, opium, and a man, as a watchmaker does those of a watch, whereby it performs its operations; and of a file, which by rubbing on them will alter the figure of any of the wheels; we should be able to tell beforehand that rhubarb will purge, hemlock kill, and opium make a man sleep: as well as a watchmaker can, that a little piece of paper laid on the balance will keep the watch from going till it be ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... appear, rubbing must be avoided till the scabs are entirely gone. The patient should be packed two, three, and even four times a day, according to the condition of the skin and the height of the fever. There is nothing ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde

... others noticed in this article, will be left for inspection at the Astor Library, in the care of Dr. Cogswell, for a fortnight after the publication of this number of the Atlantic. This slight ablution, hardly more effective than the rubbing of a child's wet finger, leaves only a pale yellow ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... and rage of Mrs. Iden whenever she knew he was paddling in the grass was awful. She would come shuffling out—she had a way of rubbing her shoes along the ground when irritated with her hands under her apron, which she twisted about—and ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... growing on waste land with mauve or purple flowers. When cut or broken a copious milky juice exudes from the stem, and in some places parents are said to poison children whom they do not desire to keep alive by rubbing this on ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... with her back to the doorway and a little sidewise by the counter, from behind which the drug-seller—a burly fellow in a suit of black—looked down on her doubtfully, rubbing his shaven chin while he glanced from her to something he held in ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... throat. Fingers bit into Kennon's neck and tightened in a viselike grip. Kennon reacted automatically. His arms came up inside the Lani's and crashed down, elbows out, tearing the Lani loose. He jumped back, rubbing his bruised throat. "That fellow's not sick!" ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... and thrown open the door. Out he sprang into the yellow haze of the corridor, tripped, and, uttering a cry of pain, fell sprawling upon the marble floor. Hot with apprehension I joined him, but he looked up with a wry smile and began furiously rubbing his ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... rubbing his hands together. That day he was not in the solemn, raven-hued finery in which he had visited Ravensdene Court; instead he wore a suit of grey tweed, in which, I thought, he looked rather younger and less impressive ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... it?" he replies, grumblingly, rising on his right elbow, and rubbing his eyes with his left hand. Wildly and vacantly he stares round the hall, as if aroused from a trance, and ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... in small compartments: when they were become sufficiently softened, the artist separated them with the blade of his knife: the others were more easily separated by moistening them with a flannel, and rubbing them slightly. It required all the address and patience of Citizen HACQUINS to leave nothing foreign to the work of the original painter: at length the outline of RAPHAEL was wholly exposed to view, and ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... handle of two stout strips of wood, 36 in. long, by joining their upper ends to a shorter crosspiece and nail it to the box. Place three paving bricks inside of the box, and the polisher will weigh about 16 lb., just the right weight for a woman to use. The polisher is used by rubbing with the grain of the wood. —Contributed by Katharine D. Morse, Syracuse, ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... so, inside the house, on the other side of the curtains, from behind which he had been anxiously peering, Cornelius Woodbridge, Senior, turned about and struck his hands together, rubbing them in a ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... talked they remained aware of the others. They could see McClane rubbing his hands; they heard his brief laugh that had no amusement in it, and his voice saying, "Anyhow, we've got ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair

... scratching the table with his paws as though he wanted to bury the dish and its contents. At last, however, turning his back to it and lying down on his side, he stretched himself out, half closing his eyes and rubbing his head against the table with languid pleasure. Then they all began to compliment Mouton. He never stole anything, they said, and could be safely left with the meat. Pauline related that he licked her fingers and ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... was called Abhimanyu because he was fearless and wrathful. And that great warrior was begotten upon the daughter of the Satwata race by Dhananjaya, like fire produced in a sacrifice from within the sami wood by the process of rubbing. Upon the birth of this child, Yudhishthira, the powerful son of Kunti, gave away unto Brahmanas ten thousand cows and coins of gold. The child from his earliest years became the favourite of Vasudeva and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... the caravan; and on the return of the Egyptian caravan, the book of prayers is exposed in the mosque El Hassaneyn, at Cairo, where men and women of the lower classes go to kiss it and obtain a blessing by rubbing their foreheads upon it. No copy of the Koran, nor any thing but the book of prayers, is placed in the Cairo Mahmal. I believe the custom to have arisen in the battle-banner of the Bedouins, called Merkeb and Otfe, which I have mentioned ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various

... and rubbing against the tongs, knocked them down with a clatter. Pennington awoke. Louise was beside him in a moment. "Ah, it's ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... him. They told him he must kill an eagle flying far above them; at his prayer, the bird descended and came within the reach of his sabre. In turn, he asked them to shoot their arrows into a tree; but by rubbing it with holy water, the bark was so hardened that not one of their shafts could pierce it. So they confessed the greatness of the ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton

... A few looked crestfallen, others, like Marian Lawrence, malignant. She had marched off with the flag, no use blinking the fact, and it had been small satisfaction to make her admit what she had already told the world. The "rubbing in" had evidently missed its mark. And the men, instead of looking cheap, were either infuriated or disgusted. Only Clavering, who managed to look bored and remote, was attending ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... certain sorts of bacteria which get into the blood. This is due to the prominent position of the valves which brings them in contact with all the blood in the body, the large extent and unevenness of the surface and to the rubbing together and contact of their edges when closed. At the site of infection there is a slight destruction of tissue and on this the blood clots producing rough wart-like projections. The valves in some cases are to a greater or less extent destroyed, they may become ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman

... whose peculiar rasping cry we hear in the grass or young corn in the spring of the year, is easily called to the gun by rubbing one notched bone over another, or, better still, using that peculiar instrument of torture worked at fairs, and called a "scratchback"—the same which, in the palmy days of Greenwich or Charlton fairs, was retailed to the cry of "All the fun of the ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... him, his only emotion a keen interest that kept every nerve alert. The hallway round which he looked displayed no original features: it was a lofty, rather narrow space, the walls of which—painted to resemble marble—were defaced by time, by the passing of many skirts and the rubbing of many shoulders. In the rear was a second door, composed of glass, and beyond it the suggestion of a staircase of polished oak that sprang upward from the dingy floor in a surprising beauty of panelled ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... task, as the packages were so awkward and heavy, the object being to make them secure against any antic on the part of the mules if they became restive, and also to guard against the corners of the plates rubbing the ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... the most trustworthy of all means of identification. Such a print is obtained by rubbing the pulp of the finger in lampblack, and then impressing it on a glazed card. The impression reveals the fine lines which exist at the tips of the fingers. The arrangement of these lines is special to each person, and cannot be changed. Hence this method is ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... decrepit father was wheeled in to see Svidrigailov by the tender and sensible mother, who as usual began the conversation with various irrelevant questions. She never asked a direct question, but began by smiling and rubbing her hands and then, if she were obliged to ascertain something—for instance, when Svidrigailov would like to have the wedding—she would begin by interested and almost eager questions about Paris ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... the matter with the back of your head? [he was rubbing it with extract of witch hazel]. Answer: It is sore, it hurts me. Q. Well! As soon as one part is better another gets out of order? etc. A. Do you know it was all revealed to me and foretold [beginning to weep]. Q. When? In your novitiate? A. Yes. Q. But not all the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... both hands Kuterastan wiped his eyes and sweating face and, rubbing his hands together as if he were rolling a small pebble between the palms, suddenly parted them with a quick downward fling, and there before him on a shining, vaporless, mirage-like cloud sat a little girl no larger than a doll. Kuterastan directed her to stand up, asking where she ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... safety or no, struck hard against the cleft of a hollow tooth, and hit the mandibulary sinew or nerve of the jaw, which put Gargantua to very great pain, so that he began to cry for the rage that he felt. To ease himself, therefore, of his smarting ache, he called for his tooth-picker, and, rubbing towards a young walnut-tree, where they lay skulking, unnestled you my gentlemen pilgrims. For he caught one by the legs, another by the scrip, another by the pocket, another by the scarf, another by the band of the breeches; and ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... needn't have explained what the improvement was for. No sooner had he climbed out of the pen than Mrs. Pig and her children began to put the rubbing post to good use. Grunty was the first of all to try it. And to his mother's delight, he stopped grumbling at once. Nor did he ever again disgrace her by scratching his back against her. Instead, he always walked up to the ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... of the dear people were reviving, and they began to look upon Jamie's illness, piously, as a blessing of Providence in disguise. While Mrs. Parsons was about her household work in the morning, the Colonel would sometimes come in, rubbing his hands gleefully. ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... explaining to him his plans for defence, his armament of barrel hoops, and his ammunition of shells and pebbles, Tod standing silently by and a little abashed, as was natural in one of his station; at which the captain laughed more loudly than before, catching Archie in his arms, rubbing his curly head with his big, hard hand, and telling him he was a chip of the old block, every inch of him—none of which did either Archie or Tod understand. Before he climbed down the ladder he announced with a solemn smile that he thought the craft was well protected so ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... "poor white men"—individuals who do not possess slave or landed property. The phrase itself expresses this antipathy; and when applied by a negro to a white man is regarded by the latter as a dire insult, and usually procures for the imprudent black a scoring with the "cowskin," or a slight "rubbing down" with ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... conducted to the tents alloted to them, so that in a few minutes all were housed without the slightest confusion or trouble. The squires of the knights and nobles and the attendants of the officers and pages at once took the horses and picketed them in lines behind the tents, rubbing them down and cleaning them with the greatest care, and then supplying them with forage from the piles that had that morning been brought in from the neighbouring farms. Fuel in abundance had also been stacked. A number of cooks had come on with the tent equipage, and ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... little pleasure in referring back to such a family quarrel, but to do so is necessary. Vast indeed is the fire that a small spark may sometimes kindle. Two small dead branches rubbing together as the wind blows may fire a forest, and cause a conflagration that shall sweep from end to end of ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... and when he bent them down again they fell on a fairy doctor mixing a cordial for the sleepers. Nay, there was even a fairy parson, who, not having any present employment, contented himself with rubbing his hands and looking pleasant, probably waiting till somebody might want to be ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... paid no attention to any of us for the last ten minutes. He had been entirely absorbed in writing figures on the sand, and then rubbing them out again with ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... dinner. 'Thee shall go to no tavern on the seventh day,' and slipping her arm into my wife's, led us to her house. Pointing to a door she told me to go in and I would see what I never saw in Scotland, and led my wife upstairs. Opening the door I found myself in a backshed, with Bambray rubbing ointment on a negro's arm. The man was a runaway slave and had arrived that morning on a schooner from Oswego. Bambray had washed him and dressed him in clean overalls. He bade the negro pull off his shirt so that I might see the marks of the ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar

... crash in the hall. Rushing downstairs, they found that a large suit of old armor had become detached from its stand, and had fallen on the stone floor, while seated in a high-backed chair was the Canterville ghost, rubbing his knees with an expression of acute agony on his face. The twins, having brought their pea-shooters with them, at once discharged two pellets on him, with that accuracy of aim which can only be attained by long and careful practice on a writing-master, while the United States Minister ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... it to do!" growled Norton, rubbing his head. "Which is the best business of those two? Well, between diamonds and horses, if you're shut up to them, I think a horse is the ...
— Trading • Susan Warner

... which Erick and Marianne—each relieving the other—gave about the whole occurrence. Erick told how he, after a strong push, had fallen into the water and then had known nothing more, and had wakened again when somebody was rubbing him firmly. That had been Marianne, who now related further. She had gone yesterday afternoon from Oakwood, where she was living now, upward along the Woodbach, to the place where the berries grew the most plentifully, as she knew these many years that she had sought ...
— Erick and Sally • Johanna Spyri

... Churches. There is a vast deal of unreality in that objection. Just think of the disproportion between the embarrassment of riches in our Christian appliances here in England and the destitution in these distant lands. Here the ships are crammed into a dock, close up against one another, rubbing their yards upon each other; and away out yonder on the waters there are leagues of loneliness, where never a sail is seen. Here, at home, we are drenched with Christian teaching, and the Churches are competing with each other, often like ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... attendant, when he saw him, spread under him bulls' hides. There [Patroclus] laying him at length, cut out with a knife the bitter, sharp arrow from his thigh, and washed the black blood from it with warm water. Then he applied a bitter, pain-assuaging root, rubbing it in his hands, which checked all his pangs: the wound, indeed, was dried up, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... enough that he knew too many little men; men who were at home in that house of bondage from which he was for ever longing to escape; men whom he had met as he had described, sitting contentedly on the dirty back-stairs of Fleet Street; men who in rubbing shoulders with each other in that crowded thoroughfare had had to allow for a great deal of what Maddox called wear and tear. Those little men had remained invincibly, imperturbably friendly. They knew perfectly well that he thought ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... came to myself again, my hands were full of young grass and mold, and a little girl, kneeling at my side, was rubbing my forehead tenderly with a dock-leaf and ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... of jawing so about that wash, when Dora came in, and put her hands into the tub, and, while she was rubbing away, began to tell what a crop of corn we're going to have; and how the folks down South, the freedmen and all, might have plenty to eat, if every one did as well as we're doing," said Mehitable ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... had the trick of rubbing his subject the wrong way. Everything he saw seemed to suggest something just the opposite. When every prospect pleased, he took offense at something that wasn't there. He was himself a favored man of leisure, and ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers

... then, if I meekly retire, With a very small flash of ethereal fire; No rubbing will kindle your Lucifer match, If the fiz does not follow ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... in suspension in liquids and even pass through filter-paper. The mixture with water is sold under the name of "aquadag," with oil as "oildag" and with grease as "gredag," for lubrication. The smooth, slippery scales of graphite in suspension slide over each other easily and keep the bearings from rubbing ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... have passed in this quiescent manner, on both sides, when Deerslayer thought he heard a slight noise, like a low rubbing against the bottom of his canoe. He opened his eyes of course, in expectation of seeing the face or arm of an Indian rising from the water, and found that a canopy of leaves was impending directly over his head. Starting to his feet, the first object that met his eye was Rivenoak, who had so far ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... 'Il est libre, en effet,' observed Nikolai Petrovitch in an undertone; 'but, you see, he's only a valet. Now I have a bailiff, a townsman; he seems a practical fellow. I pay him two hundred and fifty roubles a year. But,' added Nikolai Petrovitch, rubbing his forehead and eyebrows with his hand, which was always an indication with him of inward embarrassment, 'I told you just now that you would not find changes at Maryino.... That's not quite correct. I think it my duty to ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... master was already a day or so beyond the promised date of his return, had started a fire on the hearth and spread a single cover on the table. He had drawn the green-and-gold curtains as though there had been anything but whirling whiteness to look in and stood warming himself with a rubbing of thin, dry hands before the open blaze. The real heat of the house, and it was almost unbearably hot, came from the stoves in kitchen and bedrooms, but this fire gave its quota of warmth and more than its quota of that beauty ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... to her remarks on the subject. At last he allowed her to repaper the room. But she presently discovered that close to the seat he generally occupied in the drawing-room of an evening there was a large hole in the new paper made by the rubbing and scraping of the Canon's fingers as he sat at tea. Through it the original pink reappeared. More than once Miss France caught her brother looking contentedly at his work of mischief. But she dared not speak of it to him, nor do anything to repair ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... alcohol or witch-hazel rubbing of the entire body, the neutral bath, or the application of the electric photophore—described a few pages back—may be made to the painful part. Do not resort to drugs, unless you are directed to ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... rubbing two sticks together is sacred. It comes direct from the power granted Toharu, vegetation, in answer to man's prayer as he rubs the sticks. When the flame leaps from the glowing wood, it is the word of the fire. The power has ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown

... you; thank you. I will take a little tea from Miss Amherst's fair hands," says the man of law, rubbing his ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... amazed, and must have looked so, for the old man broke into a merry laugh, that sounded like two pieces of cracked iron rubbing together. There was a merry twinkle in his eye even after his laugh, and he regarded me with a humorous expression which was ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... a bad thing to be in this country," said Ephraim, rubbing the glass case and restoring identity to the hands. "If that man had been crazy he'd been livin' right now. Injuns'll ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... him down on the grounds that his math was faulty. It seems that he submitted the idea in straight-algebra terms instead of differential equations. He finally won through after patenting the discovery and rubbing their noses in it. Previously, none of the physics journals would publish his paper—he didn't have the right status ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... throwing out his hand far into the air after each stroke. The dust produced by the rasping, infinitesimal though it be, is powerful in giving health and life. Now he turns toward the rising Sun, holding out his implements to him; and, quickly rubbing up and down a few times at the lower end of the notched stick, he makes a long stroke from end to end, passing the hand far out from the stick toward the Sun. By this act, three times performed, he waves Hikuli home. In the early morning, Hikuli had ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... strange event which had befallen old Oliver. He went back to his own chair, where he smoked his Broseley pipe every night, and sank down in it, rubbing his legs softly; for it was a long time since he had nursed any child, and even Dolly's small weight was a burden to him. Her tiny clothes were scattered up and down, and there was no one beside himself to gather them together, and fold them straight. In shaking out her frock a letter fell ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton

... days that had come upon the family in their fastness, and whether men had poured through it with torches and swords, or whether the gap had been cut in later years for mine host of the Dragon and Knight, and he had gone quietly through it rubbing his hands, nothing remained to show ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany

... was deliberately "rubbing it in" because Hastings—that is, Hastings' agents had not invited Kelly to assist in the project for "teaching the labor element a much needed lesson." But knowledge of Kelly's motive did not make the truth he was telling any less true—the absurd mismanagement ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... I was suffering from a great irritability of the skin, and was covered all over with a prickly heat; the slightest pressure or rubbing produced inflammation and boils, particularly about the knees: and Mr. Phillips suffered in the same way, at the arm and elbow. Mr. Gilbert had been subject to these boils when we were travelling at Peak Range, and along ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... said Hall, rubbing his hands with a satisfied air, while his eyes glanced keen and bright with the reflection of some passing thought, "Max Syx is greater than any alchemist that ever lived. If those old fellows in the dark ages had accomplished ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss

... see the miraculous powers of the cleansing cream." She took a handkerchief from her pocket and after a vigorous rubbing of the anointed cheek submitted the ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... which would have done credit To even a Yankee boy, he Sought the lamp where the wizard had hid it, And, turning a mystical key, Brought it forth, and then, rubbing with glee, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... her hand caused her the acutest suffering. It would awaken her in the night, and oblige her to get up and spend hours in rubbing it and trying to allay the pain. If any one has had a jumping toothache, he can imagine something what her suffering was, only the pain extended over the whole hand and arm, instead of being confined to one small place like a tooth. I have known ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... he knew I knew it. He turned and scooped up Rindy, who was sobbing noisily. She dug her head into his shoulder and I made out her strangled words. "The other Toys hurt you when I was mad at you...." she sobbed, rubbing her fists against smeared cheeks. "I—I wasn't that mad at you. I wasn't that mad at anybody, not ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... was large, and was roofed and floored with rush mats. The smoke hung in a cloud over our heads, but the air around us was sufficiently clear for us to see,—though with some rubbing of the eyes. An aged Indian sat close to the blaze, and Father ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... son intently while, silently and without the usual sipping and a satisfied smacking of the lips, she emptied her bowl. With a mute gesture she drove away the cat, which had crept up purring and was rubbing its head on the man's legs. She herself hardly dared to breathe. What was William thinking about, that he was so still? A short while ago, in winter, he had been much more talkative. What stories he had told of the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... bidders. It was rather barbarous of me, I think, upon reflection, to stand at the window while all this riot was going on, laughing at the fun; for not a wretch found his way in that did not come out rubbing his back or his elbow, or showing some grievous damage done to his garments. The opposite window of my room looks out upon a churchyard and a burial-ground; the reflections suggested by the contrast between the two prospects are not otherwise than edifying.... Good-by; ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... help a creepy feeling coming over me as she uttered the words. I remembered her charming the place where the thorn had been and rubbing some ointment over it, and I also remember how quickly I ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking

... little Hans, rubbing his eyes and pulling off his night-cap, 'but I was so tired that I thought I would lie in bed for a little time, and listen to the birds singing. Do you know that I always work better after hearing the ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde

... full as quick as camphire. And, thank the Lord, I can see as well as smell," said Mr. Brooks, with a tender glance at Maria which made Horace feel ashamed of himself. The idea of that poor child's rubbing anything into her eyes? Why, she looked like a wounded bird that had been out in a storm. Her face was really almost beautiful, but so sad that you could not see it without a feeling ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)

... Pratinas, rubbing his crushed member. "What a grip is yours! Don't be alarmed. Surely you would be as willing to have one or two of your newest tiros hung on a cross, as stabbed on the arena—especially when it will ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... men did burne to ashes presentlie, Fatt men did wast to leane Anatomye; Young womens heat did gett themselves with child, For none but they themselves themselves defild; Old women naturally to witches turne, And onely rubbing one another burne. The beasts were bak'd, skin turnd to crust, they say, And fishes in the River boild away. Birds in the aire were rosted and not burn'd, For, as they fell downe, all the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... at the old home I found Aunt Mary vigorously rubbing her hand and wrist (she had slipped downstairs in a neighbour's house, and broken her arm, and had to drive home before she could have it set). No one from the neighbour's house went to accompany her; no one came to enquire; no message was sent. When she recovered so far as to be able to be out, ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... the V, V, H, of the Dixon grade. The pencil lines should be made as lightly as possible; first, because the presence of the lead on the paper tends to prevent the ink from passing to the paper; and, secondly, because in rubbing out the pencil lines the ink lines are reduced in blackness and the surface of the paper becomes roughened, so that it will soil easier and be harder to clean. In order to produce fine pencil lines without requiring a very frequent sharpening of the pencil ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... him into the tent, and a servant, when he saw him, spread bullock-skins on the ground for him to lie on. He laid him at full length and cut out the sharp arrow from his thigh; he washed the black blood from the wound with warm water; he then crushed a bitter herb, rubbing it between his hands, and spread it upon the wound; this was a virtuous herb which killed all pain; so the wound presently dried and the ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... entered, "come quick; the Emperor needs you; make him some tea, and do not go out till he is better." His Majesty had scarcely taken three cups before the pain decreased, while she continued to hold his head on her knees, pressing his brow with her white, plump hands, and also rubbing his breast. "You feel better, do you not? Would you like to lie down a little while? I will stay by your bed with Constant." This tenderness was indeed touching, especially in one occupying ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... of Patriotism.* Should their menaces be escaped there remains the Assize Court with a jury that will need to be brave indeed if it is to resist all the pressure of a deliberately organised "terror." At the end possibly lie imprisonment, fine, disgrace, ruin. How jubilantly some are already rubbing their hands in the bishops' palaces, the parsonages, the sacristies of France! Ah! no stone will be kept unturned to secure a conviction! But Emile Zola does not waver. It may be the truth, the whole truth will only be known to ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... the matter, by which it presseth our organs diversly. Neither in us that are pressed, are they anything els, but divers motions; (for motion, produceth nothing but motion.) But their apparence to us is Fancy, the same waking, that dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the Eye, makes us fancy a light; and pressing the Eare, produceth a dinne; so do the bodies also we see, or hear, produce the same by their strong, though unobserved action, For if those Colours, and Sounds, were in the Bodies, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... of events turns our sternest resolves to ridicule. On the next street-corner was a hair-dresser's shop, its genial little proprietor, plump and smug, rubbing his hands and smiling in the doorway. Beholding the commanding figure of the yellow-bearded young aristocrat, afar off, his professional mouth watered over him. What a harvest for shears and razor was here! ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... yet broken when the 'watch' of the ship Vulcan, lying becalmed off the —— coast, was roused by a peculiar noise aft. Going to the spot he was surprised to find a much-bedraggled monkey rubbing itself on a pile of sail-cloth. The creature had evidently swum or drifted a long distance, and was now endeavouring to restore circulation. Jerry, being a humane man, got it some biscuit, and a saucer ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond

... awake! Clear summer has forth walk'd Unto the clover-sward, and she has talk'd Full soothingly to every nested finch: Rise, Cupids! or we'll give the blue-bell pinch To your dimpled arms. Once more sweet life begin!" At this, from every side they hurried in, Rubbing their sleepy eyes with lazy wrists, And doubling over head their little fists 510 In backward yawns. But all were soon alive: For as delicious wine doth, sparkling, dive In nectar'd clouds and curls through water fair, ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... dot 'cheese it'?" he asked, rubbing his bald head in helpless bewilderment. "Efery dime dey says 'cheese ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... Whether I worked or rested, I was careful to sit or stand close to a wall—to guard against a stab in the back. I smile now, not gaily, at the picture of myself over a washtub, a small dagger in my belt, a revolver on a stool within easy reach of my steady, right hand, rubbing briskly while the tears of homesickness rolled down in uncontrollable floods, but singing, ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger

... shines so brightly overhead will else laugh at you for being dirty; see, I have put everything ready for you," and her grandfather pointed as he spoke to a large tub full of water, which stood in the sun before the door. Heidi ran to it and began splashing and rubbing, till she quite glistened with cleanliness. The grandfather meanwhile went inside the hut, calling to Peter to follow him and bring in his wallet. Peter obeyed with astonishment, and laid down the little bag which held ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... dark leaf and straining bough, stooping now and then to pick up a fallen apple and try its mellowness with his thumb. They were all hard, and fit only for cider yet, but their rich colors beguiled the eye into betrayal of the palate. Joe fixed his choice upon a golden willow-twig. As he stood rubbing the apple on his sleeve, his eye running over the task ahead of him in a rough estimate of the time it would require to clean up the clover, he started at sight of a white object dangling from a bough a few rods ahead of him. His ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... turn now," says Prince ARTHUR, gleefully rubbing his hands, "and I wish them joy of it. As for me, I shall live my Saturday to Monday in peace, and shall go to the Opera every ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various

... of a few days my thoats were the wonder of the entire community. They would follow me like dogs, rubbing their great snouts against my body in awkward evidence of affection, and respond to my every command with an alacrity and docility which caused the Martian warriors to ascribe to me the possession of some earthly ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... stranger returned, Sundown had a fire going. "Feels good," commented the man, rubbing his hands and surveying the room in the glow that flared up as he lifted the stove-lid. "On your ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... brought forward pass through it (or rather make it a part of their continuation) from their origin in the thigh to their insertion in the tibia. It protects both the tendon and the joint from any injury which either might suffer by the rubbing of one against the other, or by the pressure of unequal surfaces. It also gives to the tendons a very considerable mechanical advantage by altering the line of their direction, and by advancing ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler



Words linked to "Rubbing" :   elbow grease, effort, traction, travail, grip, representation, exertion, resistance, abrasion, sweat, attrition, grinding, rub, adhesive friction



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