brushing off

Verb

brush off (third-person singular simple present brushes off, present participle brushing off, simple past and past participle brushed off)

1. (idiomatic) To disregard (something), to dismiss or ignore (someone), as unimportant.
   • Again I begged her to keep an eye on her blood pressure and not get so worked up, and once more she brushed me off, this time with a curt request that I would go and boil my head.1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVIII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   shrug off

2. (dated) To depart with a sweeping motion; to rush away.
   • Thus, ſeizing his hat, he bruſh’d off like the wind, / And the Porter and Eatables follow’d behind.1765, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Haunch of Venison, a Poetical Epistle to Lord Clare, Dublin: […] W. Whitestone, […], published 1776, →OCLC, page 8
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see brush, off. To remove something with a brush.