putoff
nounEtymology Deverbal from put off.
1
An excuse made to delay or stall.
- I think I would have asked farther, but Alan gave me the put-off. “I am rather wearied,” he said, “and I would like fine to get a sleep.”1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC: