Rubber Was Named for Rubbing Out Pencil Marks
Rubber is an elastic material. It got its English name because Joseph Priestley noticed it erased pencil.
Rubber is an elastic material from latex, natural or synthetic. The name is accidental: in 1770 Joseph Priestley noted that the substance was excellent for rubbing out pencil marks, and the material took its name from that minor use. Britain still calls an eraser a rubber, which causes reliable confusion in American classrooms.
- An elastic material. *Natural rubber.*
- An eraser (British). *Pass me a rubber.*
- A series of games. *A rubber of bridge.*
- Vulcanised — treated with sulphur. *Vulcanised rubber.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | rubber | Synthetic rubber. |
| Plural | rubbers | Rubber gloves. |
| Adjective | rubbery | A rubbery texture. |
| American | eraser | A pencil eraser. |
| Related | latex | Natural latex. |
How it is used in a sentence
- Priestley named it for erasing.In 1770.
- Vulcanisation made rubber usable.Charles Goodyear, 1839.
- A rubber of bridge is a set of games.An unrelated word.
Rubber facts
- Latex — the milky sap tapped from rubber trees
- Vulcanisation — heating with sulphur to make rubber stable across temperatures
- Amazon origin — the rubber tree is native to South America
- Rubber boom — brutal exploitation in the Congo and the Amazon
- Synthetic rubber — developed largely under wartime pressure
From *rub*, of uncertain origin, plus the agent suffix. The material was named for erasing pencil in 1770.
Why is an eraser called a rubber in Britain?
Because that was the material's original English use, and the name for the object stayed while the material found other applications.
What is vulcanisation?
Heating rubber with sulphur so it stays elastic across a wide temperature range. Charles Goodyear developed it in 1839.