brush off

present singular third person brushes off · participle present brushing off · participle past brushed off · past brushed off

1. idiomaticTo disregard (something), to dismiss or ignore (someone), as unimportant.

   Again I begged her to keep an eye on her blood pressure and not get so worked up, and once more she brushed me off, this time with a curt request that I would go and boil my head.

   1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVIII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC

   1 more example

   In a statement sent to the Guardian early on Friday, hours before Trump’s post was taken down, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, attempted to brush off the outrage.

   2026 February 7, Richard Luscombe, Shrai Popat, Robert Mackey, “Trump refuses to apologize for video with racist imagery of Obamas posted on his social media”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: shrug off

2. datedTo depart with a sweeping motion; to rush away.

   Thus, ſeizing his hat, he bruſh’d off like the wind, / And the Porter and Eatables follow’d behind.

   1765, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Haunch of Venison, a Poetical Epistle to Lord Clare, Dublin: […] W. Whitestone, […], published 1776, →OCLC, page 8

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see brush, off. To remove something with a brush.

plural brush offs

1. nonstandardNonstandard spelling of brush-off.