rubbery
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of rubbery
Explanation
Rubbery things have a tough, flexible texture, like a rubbery playground ball or a rubbery piece of American cheese. You'll often find the adjective rubbery describing food that's unpleasant to chew, like rubbery pasta or overcooked, rubbery chicken. Things actually made out of rubber are rubbery too, like a rubbery water balloon or the pair of rubbery gloves your grandma uses for gardening. Rubbery comes from rubber, a noun that originally meant "an eraser made from a tropical plant," or in other words, "a thing that rubs."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Fleming reads unconventional in every way, from his manic and meta delivery to his glam-rock crushed-velvet bodysuit to a rubbery tendency to leap around the stage, no limb left behind.
From Los Angeles Times • May 27, 2026
The third track, “Ready, Steady, Go!,” is another clubby number, this time with a clean and rubbery bassline, and it too creates an expectation for a feeling of release that never arrives.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 10, 2026
Read's agency is currently funding various pioneering approaches to robotics, some of which involve actuators made of elastomers – like rubbery plastics.
From BBC • Feb. 5, 2026
On the Alto K98M, that click-clackiness is muffled by a rubbery internal gasket surrounding the keys.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 23, 2025
And even though I hated getting shuffled around and grabbed by my love handles, my rubbery constipated face did relax into a smile.
From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
