"rub off" meaning in English

See rub off in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-rub off.ogg [Australia] Forms: rubs off [present, singular, third-person], rubbing off [participle, present], rubbed off [participle, past], rubbed off [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} rub off (third-person singular simple present rubs off, present participle rubbing off, simple past and past participle rubbed off)
  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rub, off. Derived forms: rub-off [noun], ruboff [noun], rub one off, rub oneself off Related terms: rub down, affect, impact, influence
    Sense id: en-rub_off-en-verb-tZ35B~BJ
  2. To clean by rubbing.
    Sense id: en-rub_off-en-verb-FbBBrPF8
  3. (intransitive, idiomatic) To be transferred with little or no effort. Tags: idiomatic, intransitive
    Sense id: en-rub_off-en-verb-dqjdbXIf Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English links with manual fragments, English phrasal verbs with particle (off) Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 30 9 62 Disambiguation of English links with manual fragments: 37 13 50 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs with particle (off): 36 15 49

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for rub off meaning in English (2.7kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "rubs off",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "rubbing off",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "rubbed off",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "rubbed off",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "rub off (third-person singular simple present rubs off, present participle rubbing off, simple past and past participle rubbed off)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "derived": [
        {
          "_dis1": "74 23 3",
          "tags": [
            "noun"
          ],
          "word": "rub-off"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "74 23 3",
          "tags": [
            "noun"
          ],
          "word": "ruboff"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "74 23 3",
          "word": "rub one off"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "74 23 3",
          "word": "rub oneself off"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rub, off."
      ],
      "id": "en-rub_off-en-verb-tZ35B~BJ",
      "links": [
        [
          "rub",
          "rub#English"
        ],
        [
          "off",
          "off#English"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "74 22 3",
          "word": "rub down"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "74 22 3",
          "word": "affect"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "74 22 3",
          "word": "impact"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "74 22 3",
          "word": "influence"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Coordinate term: rub out"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To clean by rubbing."
      ],
      "id": "en-rub_off-en-verb-FbBBrPF8",
      "links": [
        [
          "clean",
          "clean"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "30 9 62",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "37 13 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English links with manual fragments",
          "parents": [
            "Links with manual fragments",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "36 15 49",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs with particle (off)",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I hoped that, if I hung out with the popular kids, some of their charisma might rub off on me.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 September 27, Barclay Bram, “My Therapist, the Robot”, in The New York Times",
          "text": "Over time, I noticed various exercises I did with Woebot rubbing off in my daily life. Woebot taught me how to set SMART goals — specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-limited.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be transferred with little or no effort."
      ],
      "id": "en-rub_off-en-verb-dqjdbXIf",
      "links": [
        [
          "transferred",
          "transferred"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic) To be transferred with little or no effort."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-rub off.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ef/En-au-rub_off.ogg/En-au-rub_off.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/En-au-rub_off.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "rub off"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English links with manual fragments",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English phrasal verbs",
    "English phrasal verbs with particle (off)",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "noun"
      ],
      "word": "rub-off"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
        "noun"
      ],
      "word": "ruboff"
    },
    {
      "word": "rub one off"
    },
    {
      "word": "rub oneself off"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "rubs off",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "rubbing off",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "rubbed off",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "rubbed off",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "rub off (third-person singular simple present rubs off, present participle rubbing off, simple past and past participle rubbed off)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "rub down"
    },
    {
      "word": "affect"
    },
    {
      "word": "impact"
    },
    {
      "word": "influence"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rub, off."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "rub",
          "rub#English"
        ],
        [
          "off",
          "off#English"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Coordinate term: rub out"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To clean by rubbing."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "clean",
          "clean"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I hoped that, if I hung out with the popular kids, some of their charisma might rub off on me.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 September 27, Barclay Bram, “My Therapist, the Robot”, in The New York Times",
          "text": "Over time, I noticed various exercises I did with Woebot rubbing off in my daily life. Woebot taught me how to set SMART goals — specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-limited.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be transferred with little or no effort."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "transferred",
          "transferred"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic) To be transferred with little or no effort."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-rub off.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/ef/En-au-rub_off.ogg/En-au-rub_off.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/En-au-rub_off.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "rub off"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-06-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (384852d and db5a844). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.