scrub

Scrub is slang for someone who is just plain bad at something—a no-talent hack. This could be in sports, video games, or thanks to TLC’s hit song, relationships.

Scrub has been slang for an “insignificant or contemptible person” since the 1500s. Over the centuries, the term was used as a slur to denigrate prostitutes and even Black people for a time. In the late 1800s, scrub was being used by athletes to deride inferior opponents. The term derives from a form of shrub.

In the 1990s, R&B girl group, TLC, helped make scrub a household term seemingly every woman in the 2000s used to describe broke guys. On the chorus of their 1999 track “No Scrubs,” TLC bops: “No, I don’t want no scrubs / A scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from me / Hangin’ out the passenger side of his best friend’s ride / Trying to holla at me.”

Scrub spread to video game culture in the 2010s, seeing heavy use on Steam, GameFAQs, and Reddit. Early on, it was especially used in fighting game communities for a poor or new player, (noob) but it since has expanded into other genres.

Scrub is a general insult for someone who is bad at something. It can be applied in a range of contexts, from sports to video games to dating. Regarding the latter, a scrub usually refers to a man, though women aren’t exempt from the “lowlife” insult.

More examples of scrub:

“[Tristan] Thompson has never been an elite player, but ever since he started dated Khloe, his performances have really gone downhill. He’s not the great offensive rebounder he once was, and is looking more and more like an overpaid scrub.”
—Nemanja Vukasinovic, Fadeaway World, August 2018

This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the term’s history, meaning, and usage.