Word.ws English Dictionary

rubbing elbows

rubbing elbows is the present participle and gerund of rub elbows.

Meaning of rub elbows

Verb

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

  1. (US, idiomatic, intransitive) To associate closely; to consort, mingle, or socialize.
    • [I]f any of the officers have but mentioned love to my wife, I'll challenge and fight such of them one by one; and if any of the common soldiers have so much as rubbed elbows with her, I'll beat them like dogs from one end of the regiment to the other.1823, James Hogg, “Peril First. Love.—Continued. Circle [IX]. Letter I.”, in The Three Perils of Woman; or, Love, Leasing, and Jealousy. […], volume II, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and...

Questions about rubbing elbows

What is rubbing elbows the present participle and gerund of?
Rubbing elbows is the present participle and gerund of rub elbows.

Words near rubbing elbows in the dictionary

  1. rubbing alcohol
  2. rubbing alcohols
  3. rubbing along
  4. rubbing away
  5. rubbing down
  6. rubbing elbows
  7. rubbing in
  8. rubbing it in
  9. rubbing machine
  10. rubbing machines
  11. rubbing off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rubbing elbows (page history and authors); rub elbows (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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Cite this entry: “rubbing elbows.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rubbing_elbows. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.