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Synonyms

put off

British  

verb

  1. (tr, adverb) to postpone or delay

    they have put off the dance until tomorrow

  2. (tr, adverb) to evade (a person) by postponement or delay

    they tried to put him off, but he came anyway

  3. (tr, adverb) to confuse; disconcert

    he was put off by her appearance

  4. (tr, preposition) to cause to lose interest in or enjoyment of

    the accident put him off driving

  5. (intr, adverb) nautical to be launched off from shore or from a ship

    we put off in the lifeboat towards the ship

  6. archaic (tr, adverb) to remove (clothes)

"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

noun

  1. a pretext or delay

"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
put off Idioms  

  1. Delay or postpone, as in He always puts off paying his bills. This idiom, dating from the late 1300s, gave rise to the proverb Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today, first recorded in the late 1300s (in Chaucer's Tale of Melibee) and repeated ever since. Also see put one off.

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

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.