"Ay, there's the ___"

The answer

RUB

3 letters. See every clue for this answer on the RUB answer page.

Used 14 times across 12 distinct years; most recently in 2026; first recorded in 1954. It appears in 8 publications in the xd corpus. Frequency and last-seen figures come from the xd crossword corpus only.

Other clues for RUB

Every other clue in this collection answered by RUB, most used first.

• Massage - used 215 times, most recently in 2026
• Chafe - used 35 times, most recently in 2026
• Abrade - used 28 times, most recently in 2024
• Barbecue seasoning - used 18 times, most recently in 2026
• Cause friction - used 16 times, most recently in 2026
• Barbecue spice mixture - used 15 times, most recently in 2026
• Polish - used 15 times, most recently in 2023
• Obstacle - used 13 times, most recently in 2019
• Difficulty - used 12 times, most recently in 2022
• Barbecue application - used 8 times, most recently in 2025
• Barbecue coating - used 8 times, most recently in 2025
• Buff - used 8 times, most recently in 2015
• Barbecue spice mix - used 7 times, most recently in 2022
• Complication - used 7 times, most recently in 2021
• Burnish - used 6 times, most recently in 2021
• Sticking point - used 6 times, most recently in 2016
• Stroke - used 6 times, most recently in 2022

Related clues

Clues in this collection of the same answer length that share a word with this clue, or match its answer pattern when no word is shared. Most used first.

• In the past - AGO, used 1,064 times
• In the style of - ALA, used 784 times
• Under the weather - ILL, used 536 times
• "___ the season ..." - TIS, used 398 times
• To the ___ degree - NTH, used 389 times
• In the manner of - ALA, used 367 times

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