to put past someone
- phrasal verb
- Informal
- She struggled for a long time, but eventually learned to put past her mistakes and embrace new opportunities.
Examples
-
He worked hard to put past himself and rebuild his relationships.
-
After years of resentment, she finally managed to put past him and forgive.
-
It's important to put past someone and focus on making things better in the future.
-
After the argument, he decided to put past what happened and move on with their friendship.
-
To find happiness, it's essential to put past old grudges and focus on the present.
Synonyms
Deal with and defeat a problem or fear
Manage to move beyond a problem or a bad feeling
To stop feeling angry about a past event and be friendly again
Forgive past fights so they do not affect the present
To start fresh by forgetting past mistakes and problems
Make people forget or forgive a past mistake over time
Antonyms
- Informal
To feel angry at someone for something they did in the past that hurt you
How Recovered
- Informal
- Informal
Surface Forms
Morphology
There is a visible compositional link—'put' (place/bring) + 'past' (into the past) suggests moving something into a prior time, a notion cross-linguistically expressed by 'put/leave behind'—so a learner could partly infer a sense of moving on. However, the specific idiomatic pattern ('put it past someone' / object omission and the role of the person) is not a straightforward, standard composition and would likely be unclear to a B1 learner without prior exposure.
Etymology
Put past someone gives a clear picture: you put an old problem past a person, pushing it behind them so they can no longer see or carry it. So, it means 'to stop letting past problems affect you'.