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Synonyms

rub off

British  

verb

  1. to remove or be removed by rubbing

  2. (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
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

noun

  1. a resulting effect on something else; consequences

    a positive rub-off
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

Presumably those who do decide to stay in room 411 are hoping that Christie’s literary genius might somehow rub off.

From The Wall Street Journal

Only when he’d finished did he rub off his hands in the dust and rise to his feet, waiting in silence for them to approach.

From Literature

During his brief time studying at Lincoln College, the "academic side of it probably didn't rub off on" Geisel, his biographer Brian Jay Jones tells me.

From BBC

Maybe if I stayed here long enough, the magic would rub off on me and make everything better.

From Literature

In some cases, the fish attempted to rub off the mark within the first hour of seeing a mirror.

From Science Daily

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.