rub out

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To 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. (obsolete) To 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. (slang, transitive) To 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
   • '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, cack, compromised to a permanent end

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