rub

To rub is to move something back and forth over a surface, pressing as you go. You rub your eyes when you wake, rub your hands together in the cold, rub a stain with a damp cloth until it gives up.

The phrasal verbs carry most of the load. Rub the cream in, rub out a pencil line, rub down a door with sandpaper; colour rubs off on your fingers, and a habit rubs off on the people around you. A shoe that rubs is one pressing on your heel until it blisters. As a noun, a rub is what the dog leans in for, and a dry rub is the spice mixture pressed onto meat the night before cooking. Rub is gentler than scrub, which brings a brush to the job, and firmer than stroke, which presses on nothing at all.

Phrases it lives in

• rub someone up the wrong way — to irritate someone without necessarily meaning to
• rub it in — to keep reminding someone of something they would rather forget
• rub shoulders with — to mix socially with a particular sort of person