push off

English

Verb

push off (third-person singular simple present pushes off, present participle pushing off, simple past and past participle pushed off)

1. (intransitive, colloquial, often imperative) To go away; to get lost.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick‎^[1], chapter 23:

     I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years’ dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term.

2. (intransitive, basketball) to commit a foul by pushing against an opponent to both accelerate more quickly and push the opponent in the opposite direction.
3. (transitive) To delay, postpone, put off, push back.
   • 1826, James Prior, Memoir of the Life and Character of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, Second Edition, Volume II, Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy (publisher), page 210:

     Far from precipitating that event therefore he pushed it off until the very last moment, when, in fact, there was no alternative left him.

   • 1977 March 9, “Crim-code issue pushes off vote on medicaid repeal veto”, in The Kingman Daily Miner, page 7:
   • 2007 July 17, Jennifer Upshaw, Loch Lomond decision delayed, in Marin Independent Journal:

     After hours of detailed debate stretching late into the night Monday, the San Rafael City Council pushed off a decision until Aug. 6 to allow for further deliberation.

   • 2007 September 12, Christina Chaplain, Government Accountability Office, GAO-07-1088R Space Based Infrared System High Program and its Alternative, DIANE Publishing, →ISBN, page 3:

     It deferred capabilities, such as mobile data processors for the Air Force and the Army and a fully compliant backup mission control facility, and it pushed off a decision to procure the third and fourth satellites.

   • 2010 August 3, Mark Arsenault, “Reid pushes vote on off-shore drilling legislation to after August recess”, Boston.com (The Boston Globe online):

     Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today pushed off a planned vote on legislation to reform rules for off-shore oil drilling, because the bill lacked the votes to overcome Republican opposition.

Synonyms

• (go away): See Thesaurus:go away

Anagrams

• Uphoffs