Word.ws English Dictionary

rubbing shoulders

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

Meaning of rub shoulders

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, usually) To associate closely; to socialize or mingle.
    • All classes rub shoulders on the greasy benches.1887, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 1, in Memories and Portraits
    Synonyms:
    rub elbows

Questions about rubbing shoulders

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

Words near rubbing shoulders in the dictionary

  1. rubbing out
  2. rubbing post
  3. rubbing posts
  4. rubbing salt in someone's wounds
  5. rubbing salt in the wound
  6. rubbing shoulders
  7. rubbing someone the wrong way
  8. rubbing someone up the wrong way
  9. rubbing someone's face in
  10. rubbing someone's nose in
  11. rubbing stone

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rubbing shoulders (page history and authors); rub shoulders (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 shoulders.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rubbing_shoulders. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.