subs. (old colloquial).—Any mean, or ill-conditioned person, or thing; as adj. = paltry, mean: also SCRUBBED, and SCRUBBY; SCRUB-RACE = a contest between contemptible animals; after FARQUHAR and The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707).—B. E., GROSE.
1598. SHAKESPEARE, Merchant of Venice, v. 1, 162.
| A little SCRUBBED boy, | |
| No higher than myself. |
1621. BURTON, The Anatomy of Melancholy. (1836) I. II. III. xv. 201. Or if they keep their wits, yet they are esteemed SCRUBS and fools, by reason of their carriage.
1634. WITHALS, Dictionary [NARES]. Promus magis quam condus: he is none of these miserable SCRUBS, but a liberall gentleman.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. SCRUB, a Ragamuffin.
1706. WARD, Hudibras Redivivus, I. vi. 6.
| Each Member of the Holy Club, | |
| From lofty Saint, to lowly SCRUB. | |
| Ibid. I. x. 10. | |
| Mounted on SCRUBS that us’d to Scour, | |
| Upon a Trot, eight Miles an Hour. |
1730. SWIFT, Traulus, i.
| T. The SCRUBBIEST cur in all the pack | |
| Can set the mastiff on your back. | |
| Ibid. (1711), The Journal to Stella, 24 Aug., xxviii. | |
| He finds some sort of SCRUB acquaintance. |
1731. FIELDING, The Letter Writers, ii. 2. 1 Whore. You stoop to us, SCRUB! 2 Whore. You a lord! You are some attorney’s clerk, or haberdasher’s ’prentice. Ibid. (1749), Tom Jones, VIII. iii. He is an errant SCRUB, I assure you.
1751. SMOLLETT, Peregrine Pickle, lxxxvii. You are worse than a dog, you old flinty-faced, flea-bitten SCRUB.
1766. GOLDSMITH, The Vicar of Wakefield, x. We should go there in as proper a manner as possible; not altogether like the SCRUBS about us.
1814. AUSTEN, Mansfield Park, xxv. I could not expect to be welcome in such a smart place as that—poor SCRUBBY midshipman as I am.
1843. DICKENS, Martin Chuzzlewit, xxxv. No SCRUBS would do for no such a purpose. Nothing less would satisfy our Directors than our member in the House of Commons.
1848. THACKERAY, The Book of Snobs, xviii. A SCRUBBY-looking, yellow-faced foreigner.
1852. W. G. SIMMS, As Good as a Comedy: or, The Tennesseean’s Story, viii. There was to be a ‘SCRUB’ race for sweepstakes, in which more than twenty horses had been already entered.
1861. M. E. BRADDON, The Trail of the Serpent, I. iv. The dumb man was a mere SCRUB, one of the very lowest of the police-force. Ibid. (1868), Dead-Sea Fruit, xxiii. I told you I knew a handy SCRUB of a man, good at picking up any out-of-the-way book I may happen to want.
1888. ROOSEVELT The Ranchman’s Rifle on Crag and Prairie [The Century, xxxvi. 200]. We got together a SCRUB wagon team of four as unkempt, dejected, and vicious-looking broncos as ever stuck fast in a quicksand.
2. (American university).—A servant.
Verb. (Christ’s Hospital).—1. To write fast: e.g., ‘SCRUB it down.’ Also as subs. = handwriting. [Lat. scribere.] See STRIVE.
2. (colloquial).—To drudge.
