fight off

British

verb

to repulse; repel
to struggle to avoid or repress

to fight off a cold

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

fight off Idioms

Defend against, drive back, as in I've been fighting off a cold all week. This figurative use of the term, originally meaning “to repel an enemy” dates from the early 1800s.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

fight off

A ragtag group of Duffer Brothers misfits teaming up to fight off eldritch horror might be the last safe bet in television.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 2026

The proposed legislation aims to fight off any nascent Chinese advantage in those market segments.

From Barron's ● Apr. 3, 2026

Watching women fight off the arms of the occult has a clock on it.

From Salon ● Mar. 29, 2026

On the shorter-term daily charts, the ETF managed to fight off a bear push at the end of 2025.

From MarketWatch ● Feb. 18, 2026

He is the big brother who’d fight off the schoolyard bully for me.

From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023