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)

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noun

1. a pretext or delay

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.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

put off

Repeated images looking worse for wear will not help his cause and may put off any potential suitors.

From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026

Kennedy was put off by a different jab.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2026

Moreover, growth in robot-assisted surgeries in the U.S. is slowing, as patients put off non-emergency surgeries following changes in insurance coverage, they say.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

The pesky pigeons aren't otherwise easily put off.

From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026

From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.

From "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster

Related Words

• adjourn
• postpone
• reschedule
• shelve
• suspend