rub off
Britishverb
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to remove or be removed by rubbing
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(intr; often foll by on or onto) to have an effect through close association or contact, esp so as to make similar
her crude manners have rubbed off on you
noun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Rub off small sprouts while you’re scrubbing the potatoes under clean, cool running water — please, no soap! — but any bigger sprouts and their “eyes” should be cut out.
From Washington Post • Jan. 17, 2022
Rub off the highlights, leaving them the natural color of the metal and apply a coat of banana-oil lacquer.
From The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 700 Things for Boys to Do by Popular Mechanics Co.
Rub off the skins so that only the green part is put in the salad-bowl.
From Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery A Manual of Cheap and Wholesome Diet by Payne, A. G.
"Rub off the smile, you hero," said William, pleasantly, himself smiling too; "there's none of that love business going into my letters."
From William Adolphus Turnpike by Banks, William
"Rub off some of your gloomy pessimism and cultivate a little more healthy girlish vanity, and you will do very well," she would say.
From My Brilliant Career by Franklin, Miles
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
