Entry · catalog no. 7010
scrub
/ /skrʌb/ /SKRUHB
noun · Atlanta / nationwide · 1990s
✓ Verified
1.
A man who is broke, unambitious, and unjustifiably arrogant — content to lean on others while boasting about what he will never do.
“He wants a woman with a car and a job but will not get either himself — a scrub, plain and simple.”
Origin & Attribution
Given its lasting definition by the Atlanta group TLC on their 1999 hit No Scrubs, which opens by spelling it out: a scrub is a guy who thinks he is fine, also known as a buster, always talking about what he wants while sitting on his broke behind. Written by Kandi Burruss, Tameka Cottle, and Kevin Briggs, the record fixed the word in the language; it topped the charts for months and named a type everyone recognized.
1999
TLC, No Scrubs defines and popularizes the term
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
Atlanta / nationwide · 1990s
Spoken by
Popularized by Black women's vernacular via TLC
$SCRUBThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady27 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
68/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1999
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@nolakid
New Orleans, LA
@htxdri
Houston, TX
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See also