rub(-out) n.
(orig. US Und.) a murder, esp. an assassination.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Glass Key 574: ‘Don’t be a sap, Neddy. This can’t get you anything but a rub-out. What good’s it going to do you to try to turn me up? None’. | |
| ‘No Place Like Homicide’ in Popular Detective Apr. 🌐 He [...] mentally crossed the holdup and rubout of a bank messenger off his memo pad. | |
| ‘Frozen Stiff’ in Popular Detective Mar. 🌐 You chalked it as a gang rub. | |
| Corruption City 77: An anonymous rub-out would most certainly have violent repercussions. | |
| Syndicate (1998) 9: Those two-grand bumps where I had to give up maybe fifteen hundred [...] after the rub was over. | |
| Boston Blitz (1974) 52: For Johnny and Val, it had to be a total rub-out. | |
| Life Its Ownself (1985) 17: They could always hold gangland rub-outs there [i.e. a landfill]. | |
| I, Fatty 238: William Desmond Taylor’s rubout and Mary Pickford’s divorce. | |
| (con. 1973) Johnny Porno 61: He heard the announcer say, ‘...a mob rubout in Queens’. |
In compounds
(US) an assassin, a murderer.
| Syndicate (1998) 43: I bet the rub-out guy was so surprised. |
(US und.) a murder, an assassination.
| Tough Guy [ebook] Joey only used four or five for the rub-out jobs [...] guys with some brains. |
In phrases
(US) to murder, to assassinate.
| Syndicate (1998) 23: My job [...] was to find the parties responsible for the job and give them the rub. |