English

Verb

rub up on

1. Used other than as an idiom: see rub,‎ up,‎ on.
2. (slang) To rub one's body against another person as a form of sexual stimulation or flirting.
   • 2004, Billy Jones, Everyday Folks: Short Stories on the Common People, ISBN 0595333788, page 7:

     Had to let it know that I still had baller status. So when I was on the dance floor, busting my moves, I didn't mind the shorty with the tight, tight blue mini-skirt who was rubbing up on me and leading me on.

   • 2007, Tim Burke & ‎Michael Burke, Die Happy: 499 Things Every Guy's Gotta Do While He Still Can, ISBN 1429902507:

     Others you may flee from immediately because an ugly drunk girl keeps rubbing up on you.

   • 2014, Davide Enia, On Earth as It Is in Heaven: A Novel, ISBN 1921961546, page 211:

     There, now they're hugging, the referee breaks them up, but don't you find it disgusting to see a couple of boxers rubbing up on each other?

3. To stimulate, interact, or resonate with.
   • 2011, Regina D. Jemison, Soul Clothes, ISBN 161599095X, page 36:

     The poetry, prose and personality in Soul Clothes, may rub up on a curious and compassionate place within you, a place of stark reality drenched in divine hope.

   • 2011, Gareth Creer, Cradle To Grave, ISBN 1446464288:

     It is a change for the better, to rub up on the ugliness of the place, see the stains it leaves.

   • 2012 June 26, Genevieve Koski, “Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe”, in The Onion AV Club:

     But musical ancestry aside, the influence to which Bieber is most beholden is the current trends in pop music, which means Believe is loaded up with EDM accouterments, seeking a comfortable middle ground where Bieber’s impressively refined pop-R&B croon can rub up on techno blasts and garish dubstep drops (and occasionally grind on some AutoTune, not necessarily because it needs it, but because a certain amount of robo-voice is expected these days).