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Rub off   /rəb ɔf/   Listen
Rub off

verb
1.
Wear away.  Synonyms: abrade, abrase, corrade, rub down.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Rub off" Quotes from Famous Books



... day's march the whole of these, to them utterly useless articles, would be thrown aside. They brightened up, however, when the guns were delivered to them. The first impulse of each was to examine his piece carefully, to try its balance by taking aim at distant objects, then to carefully rub off any little spot of rust that could be detected, lastly to take out the ramrod and let it fall into the barrel, to judge by the ring whether ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... takes place between us and our brethren, will only tend to smoothe the ruggedness of our temper, and rub off the unevennesses of our character, provided we can keep ourselves from impatience and resentment. In going along the course of a brook or a river, you sometimes come upon a bend, where you find a heap of smooth and nicely rounded pebble stones thrown up. Did you ever ask yourselves how these pebbles ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... the big fan, all crushed, which objects of interest he had discovered later in the bay-window. ... Yes, probably Major Belwether would be very grateful, because he wanted Quarrier in the family; he needed Quarrier in his business. ... But, faugh! that was close enough to blackmail to rub off! ... No! ... No! He wouldn't go to Belwether and promise any such thing! ... On the contrary, he felt it his duty to inform Quarrier! Quarrier had a right to know what sort of a girl he was threatened with for life! ... A man ought ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... don't say you wouldn't.' He rambled on, turning about the room again, partly like a person whose sequences were naturally slow but also a little as if, though he knew what he had in mind, there were still a scruple attached to it that he was trying to rub off. ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... up, five cents worth of sulphureted potassium. Put a teaspoonful of this into a tin with 2 qt. of water. Polish a piece of scrap metal and dip it in the solution. If it colors the metal red, it has the correct strength. Drying will cause this to change to purple. Rub off the highlights, leaving them the natural color of the metal and apply a coat of ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... of the bureau amidst a litter of toilet articles, and bought by Lise for a quarter at the Bagatelle bargain counter, was an oval photograph frame from which the silver wash had begun to rub off, and the band of purple velvet inside the metal had whitened. The frame always contained the current object of Lise's affections, though the exhibits—as Janet said—were subject to change without notice. The Adonis who now reigned ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... known to the boys as "chinas," or "alleys." Real china ones are made of porcelain clay, and baked like chinaware or other pottery. Some of them have a pearly glaze, and some are painted in various colors, which will not rub off, because they are baked in, just as the pictures are on the plates and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... of even size, until tender. Set aside for some hours, or over night, covered with vinegar. When ready to serve, rub off the skin, scoop out the centre of each to form a cup, and arrange the cups on lettuce leaves. For each five cups chop fine a cucumber. Make a French dressing of two tablespoonfuls of oil, half a ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill

... differ; some are bold and open. They like to be men, and to dare the deeds of men; they talk freely, and take their swing in broad day. Others are shy, reserved, bashful, and are afraid to do what they love quite as much as the others. Agellius never could rub off this shame, and it has taken this turn. He's sure to outgrow it in a year or two. I should not wonder if, when once he had got over it, he went into the opposite fault. You'll find him a drinker and a swaggerer and a spendthrift before ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... fellow; and the sooner you rub off that paint, the sooner you'll look like a Christian," said the careless ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... you the contrary," said Harry. "I take this piece of white paper, look, and hold it a second or two down upon the candle-flame, keeping the flame very steady. Now I'll rub off the black of the smoke, and—there—you find that the paper is scorched in the shape of a ring; but inside the ring it is only dirtied, and ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... poor. It seemed to be leading us to mischief—I thought the greater part of it insincere. Then I came to know you.—And, after all, it seemed a woman could talk of public things, and still be real—the humanity didn't rub off, the colour stood! It was easy, of course, to say that you had a personal motive—other people said it, and I should have liked to echo it. But from the beginning I knew that didn't explain it. All the women,"—he ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... propensities determined them in favour of aerial or terrestrial existence. Others, by an inherent disposition to society and civilisation, and by a stronger effort of volition, would become men. These in time would restrict themselves to the use of their hind feet; their tails would gradually rub off by sitting in their caves or huts as soon as they arrived at a domesticated state; they would invent language and the use of fire, with our present and hitherto imperfect system of society. In the meantime, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... black silk and robes of blue cloth or dyed wool, all amazed them; some insisted that the white colour of the strangers was not natural but put on"; as with Cook and so many others the savages now behaved with Cadamosto. They spat upon his arm and tried to rub off the white paint; then they wondered more than ever when they found the ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... black paper, or colored tracing-paper, and stick them to the glass. In copying a picture on a slide put the glass over the picture and draw the outline with a fine brush dipped in Indian ink. Then paint. All painting on slides should be covered with fixing varnish, or it will rub off. ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... the part on each side with yellow soap. Then lay on a thick mixture of starch in cold water, rub it well in, and expose the linen to the sun and air till the stain comes out. If not removed in three or four days, rub off the mixture, and renew the process. When dry, it may be sprinkled with a little water.—Many other stains may be taken out by only dipping the linen into sour buttermilk, and drying it in a hot sun. Then wash it in cold water and dry it, two or ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... brocade, and a basket of fresh eggs better than a gold-enamelled snuff-box. While, though I did long to see the old home again, I knew it would be bare of those who had made it dear, and, besides, it would be as well that M. Darpent should rub off as much as might be of his French breeding before showing him among the Thistlewoods and Merrycourts, and all the rest of our country-folk. Moreover, after the stir of Paris he might have found himself dull, and he had the ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... sufficient vinegar to cover the mushrooms; to each quart of mushrooms two blades of pounded mace, one ounce of ground pepper, salt to taste. Choose young button mushrooms for pickling, and rub off the skin with a piece of flannel and salt, and cut off the stalks; if very large take out the red gills and reject the black ones, as they are too old. Put them in a stewpan, sprinkle salt over them, with pounded mace and pepper in the above proportion; shake them well over ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... hospital there would have been nothing better she could do with it; and there was no charitable institution in which she had been as much interested as in Gilbert Osmond. He would use her fortune in a way that would make her think better of it and rub off a certain grossness attaching to the good luck of an unexpected inheritance. There had been nothing very delicate in inheriting seventy thousand pounds; the delicacy had been all in Mr. Touchett's leaving them ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... we'll get it back," he said. "You must come to me for half an hour every day, and we'll soon rub off the rust." ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... damp gravel on the lady's skirt through his eye-glass with deep but helpless anxiety. "It's a pity for the pretty frock!" he said with much seriousness. And the group gathered round and gazed in dismay, as if they expected it to disappear of itself—until Mrs. Hudson bustled up. "It will rub off; it will not make any mark. If one of you gentlemen will lend me a handkerchief," she said. And Algy and Harry and Dick Bolsover, not to speak of Lady Mariamne herself, watched with great gravity while the gravel was swept off. "I make no doubt," said the ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... "Rub off some of your gloomy pessimism and cultivate a little more healthy girlish vanity, and you will do very well," ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... as he has come on foot or in a carriage, he rubs off or he does not rub off the slight patches of ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... London to the Milky Way. Now the total mass of the granite represents, on this scheme of payment, the total funded debt of man's race to Father Time and earthly corruption; all this intolerable score, chalked up to our debit, we by ourselves and our representatives have to rub off, before the granite will be rubbed away by the muslin robe of the proud flying angel, (who, if he were a good fellow, might just as well give a sly kick with his heel to the granite,) before time will be at an end, and the burden of flesh accomplished. But you hear it expressed in ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... asked of the Canadians was to allow a little of the glory they had won—they had such a lot—to rub off on their neighbours. If there must be war, and no Canadian believed in it as an institution, why, to my mind, the Canadians did a fine thing for civilization's sake. It hurt sometimes to think that we also could not be in the fight ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... the nursery row and grow them the first year as a whip or single shoot. The second year before growth starts in the spring I would cut those whips back to the height where I wanted to start the head of the tree. After growth starts rub off all the buds except from four to six at the top, these being left to form the head of the tree. The trunk of the tree below these buds should be kept clear of all ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... gardener should scrape and wash thoroughly all his fruit trees, so as to rub off the eggs of the bark lice which hatch out early in May. Many injurious caterpillars and insects of all kinds winter under loose pieces of bark, or under matting and straw at the base of the trees. Search should also be made for the eggs ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard

... of the principal roles were almost obviously assumed, interchangeable almost; any day the players might drop their wigs, rub off the paint, and appear otherwise, as they were in private life. The Widow Jequier's husband, for instance, had been a pasteur who had gone later into the business of a wine-merchant. She herself was not really the keeper of a Pension ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... from her point of view, you know, she has a dread of my brother's influence on the child on the formation of his character, his 'ideals,' poor little brat, his principles. It's as if it were a subtle poison or a contagion—something that would rub off on his tender sensibility when his father kisses him or holds him on his knee. If she could she'd prevent Mark from even so much as touching him. Every one knows it—visitors see it for themselves; so there's no harm in my telling you. Isn't it excessively odd? It ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James

... ye are!" one woman would exclaim, "I'm telt that ye maunna use a scrubbin' brush on't, or the pattern will rub off." ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... around them. If it came from without, in, the most admonished child would be the best, the most talked to pupil the wisest, but the reverse is usually true. That which adheres simply to the surface of rock and child is veneer, which the testing circumstance will rub off. Only that which is assimilated is of any ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... four pounds brown sugar; one-half cup vinegar; one teaspoonful each of ginger and cloves; one tablespoonful cinnamon. Cover tomatoes with boiling water and let stand five minutes; rub off skins and cut off stem ends. Slice into a porcelain kettle and cook until soft; add sugar and stew until very thick; add spices and vinegar and cook short time longer. Pour in quart Mason jars and seal while hot. This is particularly good with ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various

... very well, Bert; very well, indeed," said he, in tones of warm approval, as Bert proceeded to rub off the salt water and get into his clothes again. "I don't think it will take a great many lessons to make ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... oxidation. Now there is only one way of keeping iron and oxygen from uniting and that is to keep them apart. A very thin dividing wall will serve for the purpose, for instance, a film of oil. But ordinary oil will rub off, so it is better to cover the surface with an oil-like linseed which oxidizes to a hard elastic and adhesive coating. If with linseed oil we mix iron oxide or some other pigment we have a paint that will protect iron perfectly so long ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... must always be kept in mind the possibility of diphtheria, and, unfortunately, it is at times impossible for the most acute physician to distinguish between these two diseases by the appearances of the throat alone. In order to do so it is necessary to rub off some of the discharge from the tonsils, and examine, microscopically, the kind of germs contained therein. The general points of difference are: in diphtheria the tonsils are usually completely covered with a gray membrane. ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... rapid transportation facilities have done much to bind the different parts of the country together, and to rub off the edges of local prejudice. Though we always favour peace, no nation would think of opposing the expressed wishes of the United States, and our moral power for good is tremendous. The name Japhet means enlargement, and ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... a knobbed root of an erregularly rounded form not unlike the Gensang in form and Consistence; this root they Collect, rub off a thin black rhind which Covers it and pounding it exposes it in cakes to the Sun. these Cakes are about an inch and 1/4 thick and 6 by 18 in wedth, when dry they either eat this bread alone without any further preperation, or boil it and make a thick ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... equally great at the complexion of his sable companion. They could not believe it was natural, and tried to rub off the imaginary dye with their hands. As the African bore all this with characteristic good-humor, displaying at the same time his rows of ivory teeth, they were prodigiously delighted.13 The animals were no ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... an ounce of camphor in one pound of melted lard. Mix with this enough fine black lead to give it an iron color. After it has been on for a day, rub off with a cloth. ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... Esther Isbel who stopped the flow of blood and bound Blaisdell's head, a task which she performed skillfully and without a tremor. The old Texan could not sit still during this operation. Sight of the blood on his hands, which he tried to rub off, appeared to inflame him to a ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... ceiling of the choir was accidentally discovered during the restoration. A workman was cleaning one of the panels, which was coarsely painted, and happened to rub off the surface paint, disclosing other work below. The upper paint was then cleared away from all the other panels. Two, in the centre, bore a Scripture subject. The others bore, alternately, coats ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... marks are made upon the floor in front of each contestant. A damp rag is then handed to each, and at the signal to go they are to run to and rub off the chalk mark on the floor. After erasing each mark, they must return to the starting line. When the last mark has been erased and the contestant crosses the starting line, ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper

... exaggerated story, Prue. Connie blamed it on me as usual. She piled them up herself to see if there were two feet of them,—she put her stockings on the floor first so the dust wouldn't rub off. It was Lark's turn to sweep and you know how Lark sweeps, and Connie was very ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... replace indigo in the majority of its applications, having at least the same power of resisting light and acids, and relieving the dyer of the troublesome, protracted rinsings required for indigo dyed goods. Every piece-dyer knows that the medium and dark indigo blue goods still rub off, even after eight hours' rinsing; but alizarine blue pieces are perfectly dyed through and clean after one hour of rinsing. Another advantage of alizarine blue and the other alizarine dyestuffs is that they ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various

... thought what a little rat it was. But do you know when that little creature was put down on the ground here some memories of her childhood or something must have wakened in her. She scratched, and kicked, and tried to rub off her blanket. And then she behaved like the big dogs here; so we said that Jenny must have grown up in ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... beating heart to pursue the grouse which are found in the belt of woodland skirting the Assiniboine River near to Fort Garry. But these expeditions were of rare occurrence, and they had not sufficed to rub off much of the bounding excitement with which he loaded and fired at anything and everything that came within range of his gun. Charley, on the other hand, had never fired a shot before, except out of an old horse-pistol; having up to this period been busily engaged at school, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne



Words linked to "Rub off" :   abrade, rasp, excoriate, wear away, chafe, wear off



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