to shrug off
32
3.9
- phrasal verb
- /ʃrʌg ɔf/
- All he did was shrug off his problems and make passes at me.
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Watch on YouTubeLike, I mean, and she shrugged it off.
- Like, I mean, and she shrugged it off.
- And so these experiences, you don't just shrug them off.
- It could, you know, make someone just shrug off that time and the energy that that they wanted to put into that passion.
- How do you go from losing your mind over an errant pronoun or the phrase master bedroom to shrugging off the explicit hate we're seeing here?
- Owl says Shrug it off, leave breath for a power surge.
Examples
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When Zoe received a threatening letter, she shrugged off the fear and treated it as a joke.
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When Zoe received a threatening letter, she shrugged it off as a sick joke.
Fiction book (2000) -
And here a major price support meeting failed and oil just shrugged it off, opened lower, closed higher, and went up without looking back.
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- Exactly, you have always shrugged this off.
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Just shrug them off and save yourself.
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And whenever Trump decides to lie or blurt out something dumb, we all just have to shrug it off and say, OK, there's been a closer look.
-
Despite the criticism she faced, she simply shrugged off the negativity and continued with her plans.
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Even after her misstep, he shrugged off the failure and remained optimistic about future opportunities.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Choose not to pay attention to someone or something
296
3.0
To refuse to accept an idea or claim
280
3.5
To choose not to react to something annoying
174
7.0
To not attend or take part in something you should, often to do something else instead
151
3.4
To stop thinking about something for a short time
106
3.9
Ignore something or someone on purpose
80
4.7
To ignore something wrong on purpose instead of reporting it
80
3.6
Make something unwanted go away, like an illness, a feeling, or a person following you
65
3.7
To refuse to have anything to do with someone or something
50
4.2
To treat something as not important or serious
46
5.3
To stop talking about an issue and accept it as it is
30
4.1
To ignore someone or something on purpose
29
3.9
To ignore what someone says or feels as unimportant
15
5.9
To ignore a small mistake to avoid an argument
11
4.5
Ignore a person or thing because you think they are not important
10
4.2
To make a joke about something embarrassing to show it is not important
6
4.1
Refuse to think about something, for example worries or objections
5
4.1
To treat criticism or an insult as not important
5
4.7
To ignore an opinion or worry as unimportant
5
5.3
Treat a question or problem as not important
4
5.9
Treat something as unimportant and ignore it
3
3.4
To stop thinking about a worry or feeling
2
7.5
To reject someone quickly and rudely
1
6.1
To treat something as not important and ignore it
Antonyms
How Dismissive
89
4.8
∞
1.0
296
3.0
32
3.9
- Informal
29
3.9
22
4.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from the constituents: 'shrug' denotes a gesture of indifference and 'off' conveys removal or dismissal, so together they literarily mean to dismiss or ignore. This compositional, gesture-based logic is common across languages and fits standard English phrasal-verb patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both words will generally infer the meaning.
Etymology
The verb shrug off comes from the simple shoulder movement: to shrug is to lift your shoulders and push something off or away to show you do not care. That's why shrug off now means 'to ignore' or 'dismiss' something and not let it bother you.