Defn: To rub anything hard, especially with a wet brush; to scour; hence, to be diligent and penurious; as, to scrub hard for a living.
SCRUB
Scrub, n.
1. One who labors hard and lives meanly; a mean fellow. "A sorry scrub." Bunyan. We should go there in as proper a manner possible; nor altogether like the scrubs about us. Goldsmith.
2. Something small and mean.
3. A worn-out brush. Ainsworth.
4. A thicket or jungle, often specified by the name of the prevailing plant; as, oak scrub, palmetto scrub, etc.
5. (Stock Breeding)
Defn: One of the commen live stock of a region of no particular breed or not of pure breed, esp. when inferior in size, etc. [U.S.] Scrub bird (Zoöl.), an Australian passerine bird of the family Atrichornithidæ, as Atrichia clamosa; — called also brush bird. — Scrub oak (Bot.), the popular name of several dwarfish species of oak. The scrub oak of New England and the Middle States is Quercus ilicifolia, a scraggy shrub; that of the Southern States is a small tree (Q. Catesbæi); that of the Rocky Mountain region is Q. undulata, var. Gambelii. — Scrub robin (Zoöl.), an Australian singing bird of the genus Drymodes.
SCRUB
Scrub, a.
Defn: Mean; dirty; contemptible; scrubby.
How solitary, how scrub, does this town lokk! Walpole.
No little scrub joint shall come on my board. Swift.
Scrub game, a game, as of ball, by unpracticed players.
— Scrub race, a race between scrubs, or between untrained animals
or contestants.