rub out

present singular third person rubs out · participle present rubbing out · participle past rubbed out · past rubbed out

1. transitiveTo 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. obsoleteTo 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. slangtransitiveTo 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

   1 more example

   '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

   Synonyms: annihilate, bag, baptize, bereave of life, blight, bring down, bump off, bury

4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rub, out.