rub out
verb1
To delete or erase or remove (something) by rubbing, especially with a rubber (eraser).
- The teacher wanted to rub out the chalk marks on the blackboard.
2
Obsolete To get by; to live.
- The first will understand but little of them, the latter over much; they might perhaps live and rub out in the middle region.1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 54, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
3
Slang To kill, especially to murder.
- It was just a week to the day since Mr. Martin had decided to rub out Mrs. Ulgine Barrows.1942, James Thurber, The Catbird Seat:
- 'Mr Grimaldi,' fills in Smoke, 'what I believe Fay has too much tact to spit out and say is this: the Rey woman might be imagining we rubbed out Dr Sixsmith.'2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN:
4
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rub, out.
- Derived terms
- rub one out, rubout