push off

Verb

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

1. (colloquial, imperative, intransitive, often) To go away; to get lost.
   • 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.1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 23
   • Brian Clapper: Why? What have I ever done to you? I just tried to help.
     Tom Carter: Push off, Brian.1998 March 29, Anthony Horowitz et al., “Written in Blood”, in Midsomer Murders

   Synonyms:

   go away

2. (intransitive) To push an opponent back, a form of personal foul.
3. (transitive) To delay, postpone, put off, push back.
   • Far from precipitating that event therefore he pushed it off until the very last moment, when, in fact, there was no alternative left him.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
   • 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 July 17, Jennifer Upshaw, Loch Lomond decision delayed, in Marin Independent Journal