rubber

noun

1. (countable, uncountable, usually)Pliable material derived from the sap of the rubber tree; a hydrocarbon biopolymer of isoprene.
2. (countable, uncountable, usually)Natural rubber or any of various synthetic materials with similar properties as natural rubber.
3. (Australia, Brunei, India, New-Zealand, UK, countable, usually)An eraser.

   “For example, they may use paddle pop sticks, hand span, pencils, rubbers, mathematics equipment (i.e. base 10 material) or anything else the teacher can find to measure the lengths of nominated objects.”

   “Drawing materials, he thought, I used to love drawing as a lad. I can afford some plain paper and pencils, surely? And a rubber, too. He smiled at the memory of an elderly uncle, also fond of drawing, who′d always called rubbers ‘lead eaters’.”

   “Stan stole a diary and some pens, pencils, ink and rubbers during his early days as a POW working on the Singapore docks.”

4. (Canada, US, countable, slang, usually)A condom, especially an external condom.

   “And the rubbers you hide / In your top left pocket”

   “Don't have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don't have sex in the missionary position, don't have sex standing up, just don't do it, OK, promise? OK, now everybody take some rubbers.”

   “My daddy said "Treat young girls like your mother" / My momma said "Trust no hoe, use a rubber"”

5. (countable, usually)Someone or something which rubs.

   “What perplexity plagues the chin-rubber in the foreground and what so discourages the man leaning on the lamp post? And to what doom is the large man at right moving? Photographer Cowherd has no answers.”

6. (countable, uncountable, usually)Someone or something which rubs.
7. (countable, uncountable, usually)Someone or something which rubs.

   “I curl his perriwig, paint his cheeks, perfume his breath; I am his froterer or rubber in a hot-house”

8. (countable, uncountable, usually)Someone or something which rubs.
9. (countable, uncountable, usually)Someone or something which rubs.
10. (historical, uncountable, usually)The cushion of an electric machine.
11. (countable, usually)The rectangular pad on the pitcher's mound from which the pitcher must pitch.

    “Jones toes the rubber and then fires to the plate.”

12. (Canada, US, in-plural, uncountable, usually)Water-resistant shoe covers, galoshes, overshoes.

    “Johnny, don't forget your rubbers today.”

    “He set aside his aunt’s counsel in regard to a better regimen, as well as her more specific hints, made in view of the near approach of rough weather, that he provide himself with rubbers and an umbrella, even if he would not hear of a rain-coat.”

13. (slang, uncountable, usually)Tires, particularly racing tires.

    “Jones enters the pits to get new rubber.”

14. (dated, slang, uncountable, usually)A hardship or misfortune.

    “The British barges, off New-London, sometimes meet with the rubbers. In an attack upon an armed smack, some days ago, they were beaten off, with the reported loss of 8 men killed.”

    “'Twas a bit gone December, / As I well remember, / I met with a rubber, and got some advice; […]”

15. In relation to a series of games or matches between two competitors where the overall winner of the series is the competitor which wins a majority of the individual games or matches:

    “They played, and Creed and his young partner won the first rubber, winning the two first games running.”

    “[…] an old lady's innocent rubber.”

16. In relation to a series of games or matches between two competitors where the overall winner of the series is the competitor which wins a majority of the individual games or matches:

    “Ladies matches shall consist of 6 rubbers. Each rubber shall consist of best of 3 games to 21 points.”

    “Montreal’s Francoise Abanda lost the first rubber of the tie 6-2, 6-4 to Karolina Pliskova on Saturday”

17. (Canada, US)A rubber match; a game or match played to break a tie.
18. The game of rubber bridge.

    “"Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my rubber." "I think you will find that you will play for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the play will be more exciting."”

adj

1. (slang)Not covered by funds on account.

verb

1. To eavesdrop on a telephone call

   “"There's a lot of nostalgia about the phone and how it was the way to get the local news," said Jane Beck of the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury. One way was "rubbering," or listening in on a neighbor's conversations ...”

2. (slang)To rubberneck; to observe with unseemly curiosity.

   “Old Sally didn't talk much, except to rave about the Lunts, because she was busy rubbering and being charming.”