ENGLISH
REFERENCE

fob off on

phr. v..
C1 Advanced Oxford British English Informal

phr. v.. to give someone a task or an item that you do not want because it is low quality or boring.

phr. v.. to deceitfully or unfairly transfer an unwanted task, responsibility, or inferior item to another person.


SIMPLE

He tried to fob his old phone off on me.

CONTEXTUAL

The manager always tries to fob the weekend shifts off on the new interns.

COMPLEX

The company attempted to fob the blame for the environmental disaster off on a minor subcontractor to protect its stock price.

Particles
off on
Separability
optional
Pattern
fob + object + off + on + person
Usage

usually implies the person receiving the thing is being tricked or treated unfairly.

Teaching tip

this is a three-part phrasal verb that is often used with 'fob off' (to give an excuse) but adding 'on' specifies the victim of the action.

Pitfall

He fobbed off the work to me.He fobbed the work off on me.the preposition 'on' is required to indicate the person receiving the unwanted thing, and 'to' is incorrect here.

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