pass off

present singular third person passes off · participle present passing off · participle past passed off · past passed off

1. intransitiveTo happen.

   The millennium passed off without any disasters.

2. transitiveTo give something (to someone).

   2015. Off the Rim. Sonya Spreen Bates. He turned and passed it off to number 23, who dribbled a couple of times and passed it to number 61.

3. To abate, to cease gradually.

   I have had a few aches and pains lately and a little fever, but that's nothing; it will pass off.

   1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 55”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   I know, too, that ever since he lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he’s been a kind of moody—desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all pass off.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 16”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC