to brush off
22
3.9
- phrasal verb
- /brʌʃ ɔf/
- Informal
:
mandar a paseo (informal)
- When I asked for help, he just brushed me off without a second thought.
Don't be quick to brush people off, listen from time to time.
- Don't be quick to brush people off, listen from time to time.
- So if it's an older paper, please don't brush it off as like, oh, this is old.
- I'm good to a lot of people and I brush off people.
- And, you know, to hear him defend and and brush off what he'd done by just like, Oh yeah.
- I mean, plenty of people don't like my ass, but I'm just brush it off, baby girl, brush it off.
- I've seen it first hand, don't let it bother you, just brush it off.
- or what would you want your coach to say to help you get your head back in the game and to brush off the mistake that you just made?
- And I got told when I was sick to by naturopaths to stop eating gluten and I had brushed it off as kind of a California girl fad.
- And that theory is largely been brushed off, but it did pop up quite a bit that I can actually check the percentage here.
- It has a weight to it, like in a, like a veracity that maybe someone else saying it, you know, I would kind of brush off.
- All right, Many times you see these narcissistic traits, you see these problematic behaviors, but you brush it off.
Examples
-
Don't brush me off.
-
The waitress at Ships said, "Haven't I seen you on TV?" and Andy brushed it off.
Fiction book (1993) -
And you think you can brush me off with $5.
-
I asked him about it, but he brushed it off.
Fiction book (2000) -
But for quite a while, I brushed off my birthday as just another day.
Blog text (10) -
The teacher looked at Anna in a shocked, worried way, which Anna brushed off with a wave of her hand.
Fiction book (1991) -
Why does my spouse just brush me off whenever I'm trying to connect?
-
Stefan follows her upstairs, but she brushes him off, saying she doesn't need his help.
Blog text (14) -
She casually brushed off my concerns about the project.
-
He tends to brush off advice, thinking he knows best.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Choose not to pay attention to someone or something
332
3.0
To refuse to accept an idea or claim
119
3.9
Ignore something or someone on purpose
103
7.0
To not attend or take part in something you should, often to do something else instead
75
4.2
To treat something as unimportant and ignore it
38
5.9
To ignore a small mistake to avoid an argument
28
4.1
To ignore someone or something on purpose
27
3.9
Treat something as unimportant and ignore it
13
4.5
Ignore a person or thing because you think they are not important
7
4.1
Refuse to think about something, for example worries or objections
4
5.3
Treat a question or problem as not important
3
4.7
To ignore an opinion or worry as unimportant
2
7.5
To reject someone quickly and rudely
2
5.9
Treat something as unimportant and ignore it
2
4.1
To treat criticism or an insult as not important
1
4.7
To ignore someone you meet by pretending not to see them
1
6.1
To treat something as not important and ignore it
To move your hand to show you do not care
To deal with a subject quickly and without enough detail
To decide not to worry about something and let it go
Antonyms
How Dismissive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal meanings 'brush' (make slight contact) and 'off' (remove) combine to evoke the physical action of brushing something away, which naturally maps onto dismissing or ignoring someone. This metaphorical extension is fairly guessable for learners who know both words but depends on phrasal-verb pragmatics, so the relation is only partly predictable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Brush off may come from the simple image of using a brush to sweep something off your coat or hand. One popular story says people began to treat words the same way—sweeping them away—so brush off now means 'to dismiss' or 'ignore' someone or something.