palm off

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Also seen as: pam off

Meaning · English

To deceive or cheat someone by giving them something worthless

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

lừa dối hoặc gian lận bằng cách đưa cho ai đó thứ vô giá trị

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: to pass something into someone's palm
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

He tried to palm off the fake designer handbag as authentic

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “palm off” mean?

To deceive or cheat someone by giving them something worthless Literally: to pass something into someone's palm

Is “palm off” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.