shrug one's shoulders

1. Show indecision or indifference, as in When I asked her if she minded staying home, she just shrugged her shoulders. This redundant idiom— shrug means “to raise and contract the shoulders”—dates from about 1450.

Example Sentences

But occasionally, it’s a mistake to simply shrug one’s shoulders in response to potentially dangerous rhetoric.

From MSNBC

One might be tempted to shrug one’s shoulders and say “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”

From Time

The simplest way of relief is to shrug one's shoulders and let the weight go.

From Project Gutenberg

If all this effort and expenditure had resulted in success, it would be possible to keep silent and shrug one's shoulders; but when the mode of undertaking this expedition can be clearly shown to have been the direct cause of its failure, silence would be a crime.

From Project Gutenberg

Were one of a mocking humor one might shrug one's shoulders; but, in the present state of the Convention, there is no room for anything but fear.

From Project Gutenberg