pass off
verb1
To happen.
- The millennium passed off without any disasters.
2
To 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:
- 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:
- Related terms
- pass off as