Word.ws English Dictionary

rub one's face with a brass candlestick

rub one's face with a brass candlestick verb: to (prepare to) be very brazen or impudent.

Verb

rub one's face with a brass candlestick (third-person singular simple present rubs one's face with a brass candlestick, present participle rubbing one's face with a brass candlestick, simple past and past participle rubbed one's face with a brass candlestick)

  1. (archaic, colloquial) To (prepare to) be very brazen or impudent.
    • Every step you take you proclaim yourself the father of him who rubbed his face with a brass candlestick1853, Walter William Broom, Many Botanical Secrets, page 4
    • "Why, Walsher," said Mr. Stubber, "how many times a day do you rub your face with a brass candlestick? Why, I lent you a pony when you were stumped, and you carried off a cool hundred."1873, The Gentleman's Magazine, volume 11, page 577

Forms of rub one's face with a brass candlestick

third-person singular presentrubs one's face with a brass candlestick
present participlerubbing one's face with a brass candlestick
past participlerubbed one's face with a brass candlestick
pastrubbed one's face with a brass candlestick

Questions about rub one's face with a brass candlestick

What does rub one's face with a brass candlestick mean?
Rub one's face with a brass candlestick means to (prepare to) be very brazen or impudent.
What part of speech is rub one's face with a brass candlestick?
Rub one's face with a brass candlestick is a verb.
What is the past tense of rub one's face with a brass candlestick?
The past tense of rub one's face with a brass candlestick is rubbed one's face with a brass candlestick.

Words near rub one's face with a brass candlestick in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rub one's face with a brass candlestick (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.

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