the rub

Idioms  

1. The difficulty or problem, as in We'd love to come but there's the rub—we can't get reservations. This expression may come from lawn bowling, where rub refers to an unevenness in the ground that impedes the ball. Its most famous use is in one of Hamlet's soliloquies (Hamlet, 3:1): “To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come ... Must give us pause.” [Late 1500s]

---

Example Sentences

Delpique had started testing the brisket recipe three weeks earlier, telling his chefs to adjust the cook time, then the rub, which tasted too strong.

From The Wall Street Journal

But here’s the rub: This new generation of traders may come to view prediction markets or crypto much as their parents or grandparents had zero-commission stock trades or low-cost ETFs—as core services they expect their brokerages to offer.

From The Wall Street Journal

Public-market investors had visibility into the 2000 bubble, but much less today—and there’s the rub.

From Barron's

Public-market investors had visibility into the 2000 bubble, but much less today—and there’s the rub.

From Barron's

There’s the rub for congressional Republicans.

From Slate

Related Words

• barrier
• bug
• crunch
• difficulty
• disadvantage
• drawback
• glitch
• hitch
• holdup
• hurdle
• impediment
• inconvenience
• obstacle
• stumbling block