Meaning of rub elbows | Babel Free

Definitions

To associate closely; to consort, mingle, or socialize.

US, idiomatic, intransitive

Equivalents

Examples

“[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.”

“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.”

“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!”

“[S]adness and poverty are never more intolerable than when hope⟳ and wealth rub elbows with them.”

“It was distasteful enough to rub elbows with an illiterate and vulgar white man of no ancestry,— […]”

“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.”

“Cowboys in ten-gallon hats and snakeskin boots rub elbows with yuppies dressed for success.”

CEFR level