SCRUBBING

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does scrubbing mean? 

• SCRUBBING (noun)
  The noun SCRUBBING has 1 sense:

1. the act of cleaning a surface by rubbing it with a brush and soap and water

  Familiarity information: SCRUBBING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SCRUBBING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of cleaning a surface by rubbing it with a brush and soap and water

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

scouring; scrub; scrubbing

Hypernyms ("scrubbing" is a kind of...):

cleaning; cleansing; cleanup (the act of making something clean)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "scrubbing"):

mopping; swabbing (cleaning with a mop)

Derivation:

scrub (clean with hard rubbing)

 Context examples 

You can have the principal to keep for yourself, if you'll use the thirty-five dollars a month for cooking and washing and scrubbing.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Just now it's the fashion to be hideous, to make your head look like a scrubbing brush, wear a strait jacket, orange gloves, and clumping square-toed boots.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Three women were got to help; and such scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets, such taking down and putting up of pictures, such polishing of mirrors and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, such airing of sheets and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"Oh, dear, what a blunderbuss I am!" exclaimed Jo, finishing Meg's glove by scrubbing her gown with it.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to rights; and when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I saw through the open door that all was again restored to complete order; only the bed was stripped of its hangings.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A poor woman came in with a pail and a mop, and asked Mr. Cutter if he would let her do some scrubbing for a bit of fish, because she hadn't any dinner for her children, and had been disappointed of a day's work.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)