Word.ws English Dictionary

rubbing off on

rubbing off on is the present participle and gerund of rub off on.

Meaning of rub off on

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.

Questions about rubbing off on

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

Words near rubbing off on in the dictionary

  1. rubbing in
  2. rubbing it in
  3. rubbing machine
  4. rubbing machines
  5. rubbing off
  6. rubbing off on
  7. rubbing oil
  8. rubbing oils
  9. rubbing one off
  10. rubbing one out
  11. rubbing one's face with a brass candlestick

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rubbing off on (page history and authors); 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.

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