scrub in
scrub in verb: to thoroughly wash one's hands and forearms in preparation for performing a surgery.
Verb
scrub in (third-person singular simple present scrubs in, present participle scrubbing in, simple past and past participle scrubbed in)
- To thoroughly wash one's hands and forearms in preparation for performing a surgery.
- There were no booties to wear over their shoes, and they wore scrub caps on their heads only if they were going to scrub in for a procedure. When you scrubbed in for surgery you couldn't touch anything after you finished scrubbing.2007 September 11, Mary Lou Parks, "O Lord Have Mercy!": Finding Our Way As Student Nurses in the 1950s, Dog Ear Publishing, →ISBN, →OL, page 83
- Members of the transplant team scrub in and go about their respective duties.2008 August 18, Lee G. Bolman with Terrence E. Deal, Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership, 4th edition, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, →ISBN, →OL, page 99
- Synonyms:
- scrub up
- To break in new racing tires by doing a few gentle laps on them, with the resulting heat serving to remove factory coatings and provide better grip.
Synonyms of scrub in
Forms of scrub in
| third-person singular present | scrubs in |
|---|---|
| present participle | scrubbing in |
| past participle | scrubbed in |
| past | scrubbed in |
Questions about scrub in
- What does scrub in mean?
- Scrub in means to thoroughly wash one's hands and forearms in preparation for performing a surgery.
- What part of speech is scrub in?
- Scrub in is a verb.
- What is the past tense of scrub in?
- The past tense of scrub in is scrubbed in.
Words near scrub in in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scrub in (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: “scrub in.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scrub_in. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.