rub out

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).

   Coordinate term: rub off

   The teacher wanted to rub out the chalk marks on the blackboard.

2. (obsolete) To get by; to live.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 54, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     The first will understand but little of them, the latter over much; they might perhaps live and rub out in the middle region.

3. (transitive, criminal slang) To kill, especially to murder.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:kill

   • 1942, James Thurber, The Catbird Seat‎:

     It was just a week to the day since Mr. Martin had decided to rub out Mrs. Ulgine Barrows.

   • 2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN:

     '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.'

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

• In both transitive senses the object may appear before or after the particle. If the object is a pronoun, then it must be before the particle.