核心畫面
One way to picture 'rub': press your hand or a cloth onto a surface and move it back and forth, again and again. That steady pressing-and-sliding is the whole word. Push the picture outward and you get every other sense: pressing two things together, the wear and soreness that constant rubbing causes, working a substance into a surface, and then a cluster of where 'rubbing' against people stands for the friction of being close to them — brushing shoulders with the famous, rubbing salt in a wound, rubbing someone the wrong way. The noun is either one quick act of this rubbing, or — by an old turn of phrase — the one sticking point that keeps catching, 'there's the rub'.
可以想成：rub 就是把手或一塊布壓在一個面上，來回、來回地推。這「邊壓邊滑、一遍又一遍」就是整個字。把這畫面往外推…更多收起
可以想成：rub 就是把手或一塊布壓在一個面上，來回、來回地推。這「邊壓邊滑、一遍又一遍」就是整個字。把這畫面往外推，其他意思就都出來了：兩樣東西互相壓著磨、一直磨造成的損耗和痠痛、把某種東西揉進一個面裡；再來是一串慣用語，用「跟人磨蹭」來說人與人靠太近時的摩擦——跟名人擦身、往傷口撒鹽、把人惹毛。名詞要嘛是這動作的一下（擦一擦、揉一揉），要嘛借一句老話，指那個老是卡住你的癥結，there's the rub。原始詞典資料16 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
RUBnoun
- 1
biochemistrybiologychemistryAny of a group of proteins similar to ubiquitin
rubnoun/ɹʌb/
- 1
An act of rubbing.
- Give that lamp a good rub and see if any genies come out.
- 2
A difficulty or problem.
- To die, to sleep— / To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub! / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, / Must give us pause
- […] the propriety of the cabman's shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt bridge where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub.
- 3
archaicA quip or sarcastic remark.
- 4
In the game of crown green bowls, any obstacle by which a bowl is diverted from its normal course.
- 5
Any substance designed to be applied by rubbing.
- a heat rub intended for muscular strains
- 6
Any substance designed to be applied by rubbing.
- 7
slanggovernmentmilitarynavalA loan.
rubverb/ɹʌb/
- 1
To move (one object) while maintaining contact with another object over some area, with pressure and friction.
- I rubbed the cloth over the glass.
- The cat rubbed itself against my leg.
- 2
To be rubbed against something.
- My shoes are beginning to rub.
- 3
To spread a substance thinly over; to smear.
- meat rubbed with spices before barbecuing
- The smoothed plank, […] / New rubbed with balm.
- 4
datedTo move or pass with difficulty.
- to rub through woods, as huntsmen
- 5
To scour; to burnish; to polish; to brighten; to cleanse; often with up or over.
- to rub up silver
- The whole business of our redemption is, in short, only to rub over the defaced copy of the creation
- 6
To hinder; to cross; to thwart.
- 'Tis the duke's pleasure, / Whose disposition, all the world well knows, / Will not be rubbed nor stopped.
- 7
To touch the jack with the bowl.
這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。