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Nuzzle vs Rub - What's the difference?

nuzzle | rub |

As a verb nuzzle

is to touch someone or something with the nose.

As a symbol rub is

russian rouble.

nuzzle

English

Verb

  • To touch someone or something with the nose.
  • The horse nuzzled its foal's head gently to wake him up.
    The bird nuzzled up to the wires of the cage.
    She nuzzled her boyfriend in the cinema.
  • (obsolete) To nurse; to foster; to bring up.
  • * Milton
  • The people had been nuzzled in idolatry.
  • (obsolete) To nestle; to house, as in a nest.
  • References

    * Folk-etymology: a dictionary of verbal corruptions or words perverted in form or meaning, by false derivation or mistaken analogy, Abram Smythe Palmer, G. Bell and Sons, 1882, p. 261

    rub

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An act of rubbing.
  • Give that lamp a good rub and see if any genies come out
  • A difficulty or problem.
  • Therein lies the rub .
  • * III.i.71-75
  • To die, to sleep—/To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub !/For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,/When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,/Must give us pause
  • * , Episode 16
  • ...the propriety of the cabman's shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt bridge where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub .
  • In the game of crown green bowls: any obstacle by which a bowl is diverted from its normal course.
  • A mixture of spices applied to meat before it is barbecued.
  • Verb

  • To move (one object) while maintaining contact with another object over some area, with pressure and friction.
  • * , chapter=7
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=“[…] This is Mr. Churchill, who, as you are aware, is good enough to come to us for his diaconate, and, as we hope, for much longer; and being a gentleman of independent means, he declines to take any payment.” Saying this Walden rubbed his hands together and smiled contentedly.}}
  • To rub something against (a second thing).
  • * Sir T. Elyot
  • It shall be expedient, after that body is cleaned, to rub the body with a coarse linen cloth.
  • To be rubbed against something.
  • To spread a substance thinly over; to smear.
  • meat rubbed with spices before barbecuing
  • * Milton
  • The smoothed plank, / New rubbed with balm.
  • (dated) To move or pass with difficulty.
  • To scour; to burnish; to polish; to brighten; to cleanse; often with up'' or ''over .
  • to rub up silver
  • * South
  • The whole business of our redemption is to rub over the defaced copy of the creation.
  • To hinder; to cross; to thwart.
  • * Shakespeare
  • 'Tis the duke's pleasure, / Whose disposition, all the world well knows, / Will not be rubbed nor stopped.

    Derived terms

    * rubber * rubbing * rub elbows * rub in * rub it in * rub out * rub off * rub shoulders * rub up * rub up on

    Anagrams

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