How to Use rub up in a Sentence

rub up

verb
  • Her harness also rubbed up against her fur from being on too long.
    — Liz O'Connell, MSNBC Newsweek, 23 Aug. 2025
  • Avoid rubbing up on any tall grass and keep to the middle when walking down a path.
    — Jocelyn Solis-Moreira, Popular Science, 27 Mar. 2023
  • Massage the chops with the barbacoa rub up to two days in advance.
    — Caron Golden, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 June 2025
  • Toe then proceeded to gently sniff the baby's head and rub up against it.
    — Liz O'Connell, Newsweek, 21 Nov. 2024
  • Their decisions on how to live in the present rub up against the realities of their pasts.
    — David Canfield, EW.com, 3 June 2020
  • But the icy home of polar bears doesn't include many vertical objects to rub up on.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 21 Jan. 2015
  • This pentagonal structure is the part that rubs up against the C ring.
    — Quanta Magazine, 20 Apr. 2026
  • Freshman players had to rub up against the line of men to get to their showers, according to the suit.
    — Alejandra Molina, Los Angeles Times, 10 Aug. 2023
  • Buckley, the Great Dane, started rubbing up against her for pets.
    — Liz O'Connell, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 July 2025
  • Earth’s crust has multiple tectonic plates that can rub up against each other and cause earthquakes.
    — Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 20 Oct. 2023
  • That rubbed up against Global North countries that were saying the world was changing.
    — Aisha Nyandoro, Forbes.com, 26 May 2026
  • Injinji toe socks are a great option for runners who tend to get blisters in the space where their toes rub up against each other.
    — Elaheh Nozari, Condé Nast Traveler, 18 Oct. 2022
  • Chewy's strategy seems to be working on Schwartz, whose blue-eyed cat likes to rub up against the painting from his cat tree.
    — Joseph Pisani, ajc, 1 Jan. 2021
  • The baby tumbled around at the surface, flipping her white belly to the sky and rubbing up against her mother’s back.
    — Kelso Harper, Scientific American, 16 Dec. 2025
  • Your emotional needs rub up against your personal limits today.
    — Usa Today, USA Today, 28 May 2026
  • On the second take, Russell’s bossy tone rubbed up nicely against the neediness of the moment.
    — Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker, 6 Oct. 2025
  • The agricultural hills and valleys rub up against the mild Central Coast.
    — Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug. 2022
  • In that extreme environment, the largest and smallest things in the universe rub up against one another.
    — Adam Mann, Scientific American, 22 June 2023
  • The image sparked something, the blurry, second-hand details rubbing up against a burial site inside me.
    — Hazlitt, 7 Dec. 2022
  • Diapers that are wet or filled with a bowel movement can rub up against a baby’s skin and cause diaper rash or infection.
    — Rachel Fradette, The Indianapolis Star, 29 Dec. 2022
  • Houses with pastures That—give me an edifice—rub up Against the very fingernails!
    — John Lee Clark, The New Yorker, 11 Sep. 2023
  • The only sounds in your private pavilion are birdsong and a symphony of critters as nature rubs up against the swaths of pale stone and marble.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 June 2026
  • Should your dog rub up against something toxic, look out for biting, licking, and guarding the area, such as their paws, bellies, undersides, and tails.
    — Amelia Arvesen, Outside Online, 5 Apr. 2025
  • As a type, there is something of the frontier sheriff or noir detective in the exorcist, someone who has rubbed up against seamy outlaws and knows their wiles.
    — Sam Kestenbaum, Harper's Magazine, 21 June 2024
  • And the hallways are wider, as women during the bygone era had large dresses and needed to pass each other without rubbing up against each other.
    — Allyson Portee, Forbes, 2 May 2023
  • Complete, utter silence, except for the hum of generators and the swish of winter coats rubbing up against each other as those wearing them hugged.
    — David Jesse, Detroit Free Press, 16 Feb. 2023
  • The particles likely got into the vials due to an incorrect set up on the manufacturing line that caused two pieces of metal to rub up against each other.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 2 Sep. 2021
  • Asked about this, Wallach told Inside Climate News that a tiger rubbing up against its fencing is not upset.
    — Katie Surma, Sun Sentinel, 19 June 2026
  • Experiment with what feels best — pressing down on it with the pads of your fingers or your palms, using your fingertips to rub in a wide circle around it, rubbing up and down over it.
    — Molly Longman, refinery29.com, 8 Apr. 2024
  • The hoards of advertisers and folk who had zero affinity with movies except to rub up against film stars and Hollywood players came later.
    — Baz Bamigboye, Deadline, 31 Jan. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rub up.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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