rub elbows

English

WOTD – 14 December 2023

Etymology

From rub + elbows, suggesting people standing so close together that their elbows touch.

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɹʌb ˈɛlbəʊz/
(General American) IPA^(key): /ɹʌb ˈɛlboʊz/
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Hyphenation: rub el‧bows

Verb

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

(idiomatic, intransitive, chiefly US) Usually followed by with: to associate closely; to consort, mingle, or socialize.
Synonyms: (one sense) hobnob, rub shoulders
- 1823, James Hogg, “Peril First. Love.—Continued. Circle [IX]. Letter I.”, in The Three Perils of Woman; or, Love, Leasing, and Jealousy. […], volume II, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, […], →OCLC, pages 260–261:
  [I]f any of the officers have but mentioned love to my wife, I'll challenge and fight such of them one by one; and if any of the common soldiers have so much as rubbed elbows with her, I'll beat them like dogs from one end of the regiment to the other.
- 1833 June 22, “Theatricals”, in Figaro in London, volume II, number 81, London: […] W. Molineux, […] [for] W. Strange, […], →OCLC, page 100, column 1:
  We have in fact nothing to say against the worthy purveyor, further than that he is an intruder when he rubs elbows with the regular audience, and that the utmost personal contact to which he should aspire, is that which makes an ice, a jelly or some other delicacy, the disconnecting instrument between his own hand and that of a customer.
- 1851, Thomas Carlyle, “Coleridge”, in The Life of John Sterling, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, part I, page 74:
  One right peal of concrete laughter at some convicted flesh-and-blood absurdity, one burst of noble indignation at some injustice or depravity, rubbing elbows with us on this solid Earth, how strange would it have been in that Kantean haze-world, and how infinitely cheering amid its vacant air-castles and dim-melting ghosts and shadows!
- 1893, Stanley J[ohn] Weyman, “The King of Navarre”, in A Gentleman of France […], volume I, London; New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 27:
  [S]adness and poverty are never more intolerable than when hope and wealth rub elbows with them.
- 1901 October, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, “A White Man’s ‘Nigger’”, in The Marrow of Tradition, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, page 87:
  It was distasteful enough to rub elbows with an illiterate and vulgar white man of no ancestry,— […]
- 1922, Zane Grey, chapter VIII, in The Day of the Beast, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, page 152:
  He just wanted to rub elbows with this throng of young people. This was the joy of life he had imagined he had missed while in France.
- 2001 June 24, Jacob V. Lamar, “Look Away, Dixieland”, in Time‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2016-04-16:
  Cowboys in ten-gallon hats and snakeskin boots rub elbows with yuppies dressed for success.

Related terms

bump elbows (“to touch elbows with another person as a greeting, as a substitute for shaking hands”) (not to be confused with rub elbows)

Translations

to associate closely — see consort,‎ socialize