dust off

present singular third person dusts off · participle present dusting off · participle past dusted off · past dusted off · alternative dust down

1. transitiveTo remove dust from.
2. figurativelytransitiveTo use something after a long time without it.

   I think it's time to dust off my old golf clubs, now that I'm retired.

   2 more examples

   "If you're accused of profiling or pretextual stops, you can bring your daily logbook to court and document that pulling over motorists for 'stickler' reasons is part of your customary pattern," Remsberg writes, "not a glaring exception conveniently dusted off in the defendant's case."

   2019, Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers

   For the Pleurotus mycelium to digest the used cigarette butts it might have to dust off an unused metabolic move.

   2020, Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, page 203

3. slangtransitiveTo jilt or desert (a person).

   Red Sox by the Numbers A “dice girl in a roadside tavern,” she said she shot McNaughton because “he tried to dust me off.”