Rubbed his lip or rubbed AT his lip
Hello, I am wondering if the type of sentence in which 'at' is used between the verb and the noun is correct, as in the example in the title. Is this a colloquialism? Do people use it in writing? Is there any difference between the two?
Top answer
Grzegorz 'rubbed at his lip' There are no instances of this found in Google Ngrams. It appears that this is not used, or if it is, it is used very, very rarely. content=rubbed+his+lip%2Crubbed+at+his+lip&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Crubbed%20his%20lip%3B%2Cc0 CJ
- Grzegorz 'rubbed at his lip' There are no instances of this found in Google Ngrams.
- It appears that this is not used, or if it is, it is used very, very rarely.
- content=rubbed+his+lip%2Crubbed+at+his+lip&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Crubbed%20his%20lip%3B%2Cc0 CJ
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Grzegorz'rubbed at his lip'
There are no instances of this found in Google Ngrams. It appears that this is not used, or if it is, it is used very, very rarely.
See
0That "at" signifies a rather non-purposeful action. You can rub your eyes, meaning to massage them with your fingers, or you can rub at your eyes, meaning to do random rubbing-like motions, sometimes even missing the eye altogether. You might rub your eyes if you are sleepy. You might rub at your eyes if you are trying to drive a truck fast through a war zone and they start burning from the sm
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