It shall be expedient, after that body is cleaned, to rub the body with a coarse linen cloth. Sir T. Elyot.

Two bones rubbed hard against one another. Arbuthnot.

The smoothed plank, . . .
New rubbed with balm. Milton.

The whole business of our redemption is to rub over the defaced copy of the creation. South.

'T is the duke's pleasure,
Whose disposition, all the world well knows,
Will not be rubbed nor stopped. Shak.

To rub down. (a) To clean by rubbing; to comb or curry; as, to down a horse. (b) To reduce or remove by rubbing; as, to rub down the rough points. -- To rub off, to clean anything by rubbing; to separate by friction; as, to rub off rust. -- To rub out, to remove or separate by friction; to erase; to obliterate; as, to rub out a mark or letter; to rub out a stain. -- To rub up. (a) To burnish; to polish; to clean. (b) To excite; to awaken; to rouse to action; as, to rub up the memory.

To rub along or on, to go on with difficulty; as, they manage, with strict economy, to rub along. [Colloq.]

Every rub is smoothed on our way. Shak.

To sleep, perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub. Shak.

Upon this rub, the English ambassadors thought fit to demur. Hayward.

One knows not, certainly, what other rubs might have been ordained for us by a wise Providence. W. Besant.

Flight shall leave no Greek a rub. Chapman.

Rub iron, an iron guard on a wagon body, against which a wheel rubs when cramped too much.