Word.ws English Dictionary

rub off on

rub off on verb: to be acquired by or transferred to (someone) as a result of regular exposure.

Verb

rub off on (third-person singular simple present rubs off on, present participle rubbing off on, simple past and past participle rubbed off on)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive, usually, beliefs) To be acquired by or transferred to (someone) as a result of regular exposure.
    • The hippie way of life seems to have rubbed off on him, as he's a flower power aficionado.
    • I had hoped that if I went out with Jackie, then some of that elder-stateswoman dignity would rub off on me, but of course without Phil she didn't have any.1995, Nick Hornby, High Fidelity, London: Victor Gollancz, →ISBN, page 19

Forms of rub off on

third-person singular presentrubs off on
present participlerubbing off on
past participlerubbed off on
pastrubbed off on

Questions about rub off on

What does rub off on mean?
Rub off on means to be acquired by or transferred to (someone) as a result of regular exposure.
What part of speech is rub off on?
Rub off on is a verb.
What is the past tense of rub off on?
The past tense of rub off on is rubbed off on.

Words near rub off on in the dictionary

  1. rub iron
  2. rub irons
  3. rub it in
  4. rub of the green
  5. rub off
  6. rub off on
  7. rub one off
  8. rub one out
  9. rub one's face with a brass candlestick
  10. rub one's hands
  11. rub one's hands together

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rub off on (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-rub off on.ogg.

Cite this entry: “rub off on.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rub_off_on. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.