sluff off

(redirected from sluffed)

sluff off

1. Literally, to shed, peel, or scrape off an outer layer of something. In this usage, a noun or pronoun can be used between "sluff" and "off." A less common variant of "slough off." It can be pretty gross to watch a snake sluff off its skin, leaving behind a weird, hollow version of itself.
2. To dismiss, ignore, or minimize the importance of someone or something. In this usage, a noun or pronoun can be used between "sluff" and "off." A less common variant of "slough off." He kept heckling me during the show, but I sluffed him off and kept performing. The senator just sluffed off the journalist's comments, describing them later as "baseless" and "incendiary."
3. To procrastinate or avoid doing work. In this usage, the phrase is sometimes followed by a noun indicating the thing being avoided. A less common variant of "slough off." If you keep sluffing off, we'll be forced to give you a formal warning. I decided to sluff off my essay for the weekend and hang out with my friends instead.
See also: off, sluff
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

sluff (off)

and slough (off)
in. to waste time; to goof off. Watch him. He will sluff off if you don’t keep after him.
See also: off, sluff
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
See also:
References in classic literature ?
It is so sluffed over and hushed up, there is so little clear thinking--oh, political economy, of course, but so few of us think clearly about our own private incomes, and admit that independent thoughts are in nine cases out of ten the result of independent means.
View in context
Contrariwise, she'd sluffed it off, with a liberal's platitudes," he thinks.
FROM DISPLACED PERSONS TO SECULAR SAINTS: HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS, JEWISH IDENTITY, AND GENDER IN THE WRITINGS OF ZELDA POPKIN
Snow sluffed off the top of the gully like sand through an hourglass and ran in larger amounts between our legs--a warning of impending wet avalanches.
Edible Plants of Alaska
Multiple hemorrhages were found on mucous layer of both uterine horns and sluffed out mucous with hemorrhage at junction of uterine horns (Fig.
Surgical management of fetal dystocia and uterine damage in a queen
Sluffed Marrow Bones with Chanterelles, Breadcrumbs, and Herbs (Serves 2)
Os a moelle farci au chanterelles, pain, et herbes fraiches
'E wer chock sluffed, though, wen this chap sed 'at 'e'd bowt t' ticket fer 'is missus but shoo'd dropped daan deead a few days back.
'Ardly just t' ticket
Absolutely no one sluffed off this project (finals are 20 percent of their semester grade).
Art in a box. (recycling renaissance)
Pennington.(57) As a result, the Eighth Circuit sluffed off what would have been a valid statutory exemption defense in one brief, incorrectly reasoned paragraph, wrongly opining that Clayton Act section 6 only protects unions, not employers, and then focused virtually all of its labor exemption attention on the nonstatutory Jewel Tea/Pennington prong.
Brown v. Pro Football, Inc.: the Supreme Court gets it right for the wrong reasons
In recent years more and more European nations have sluffed off American leadership in drug policy and struck out in new directions of their own.
De-Americanizing Drug Policy: The Search for Alternatives for Failed Repression
Idioms browser ?
Full browser ?