fob off

• fub off (archaic)

fob off (third-person singular simple present fobs off, present participle fobbing off, simple past and past participle fobbed off)

1. (informal, transitive) To use lies, excuses, or deceit to satisfy someone; to deceitfully appease someone by giving something that is spurious or inferior from what was wanted or expected.

   When I phoned up, I was fobbed off with a string of excuses.

   The author's defense of the policy fobs readers off by only briefly mentioning the opposition's strong points and then immediately dismissing them without comment.

   • c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     You must not think to fob off our disgrace ; but, an't please you, deliver.

   • 1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Cavvses that hitherto have Hindred it; republished as Will Taliaferro Hale, editor, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England (Yale Studies in English; LIV), New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1916, →OCLC:

     A conspiracy of bishops could prostrate and fob off the right of the people.

   • 2020 August 4, Richard Conniff, “They may look goofy, but ostriches are nobody’s fool”, in National Geographic Magazine‎:

     birds that try to fob off the tedious work of parenting by slipping their eggs into other birds’ nests.

2. (informal, transitive) To fraudulently dispose of (goods).

   He fobbed off the forgery as genuine.

• (to fraudulently dispose of): foist, pass off, palm off, pawn off

• 1897 Universal Dictionary of the English Language, Robert Hunter and Charles Morris, eds., v 2 p 2146.