off the hook
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
To escape a situation of responsibility or obligation, or, less frequently, danger.
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Thoát khỏi tình huống có trách nhiệm hoặc nghĩa vụ
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
It's keeping the Labour leader awake at nights, the column inches, full of knocking copy, and letting the Tories off the hook.
‘ It gets them off the hook,’ explains one psychotherapist.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Imported from Wikipedia “English-language idioms” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29), pending review. Figurative class: Metaphor (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “off the hook” mean?
To escape a situation of responsibility or obligation, or, less frequently, danger.
Is “off the hook” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.