to shrug off
27
3.9
- phrasal verb
- /ʃrʌg ɔf/
:
restar importancia a
- All he did was shrug off his problems and make passes at me.
Like, 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
-
When Zoe received a threatening letter, she shrugged off the fear and treated it as a joke.
-
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.
-
- Exactly, you have always shrugged this off.
-
Just shrug them off and save yourself.
-
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.
-
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
370
3.5
To choose not to react to something annoying
332
3.0
To refuse to accept an idea or claim
119
3.9
Ignore something or someone on purpose
103
3.4
To stop thinking about something for a short time
103
7.0
To not attend or take part in something you should, often to do something else instead
69
4.7
To ignore something wrong on purpose instead of reporting it
49
5.3
To stop talking about an issue and accept it as it is
41
3.6
Make something unwanted go away, like an illness, a feeling, or a person following you
38
5.9
To ignore a small mistake to avoid an argument
28
4.1
To ignore someone or something on purpose
22
3.9
To ignore what someone says or feels as unimportant
22
4.2
To treat something as not important or serious
20
4.2
To make a joke about something embarrassing to show it is not important
15
3.7
To refuse to have anything to do with someone or something
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
4
3.4
To stop thinking about a worry or feeling
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
6.1
To treat something as not important and ignore it
Antonyms
How Dismissive
23
4.8
∞
1.0
332
3.0
27
3.9
- Informal
22
3.9
16
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.