rip off
English
editPronunciation
editAudio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
edit- Misspelling of rip-off.
Verb
editrip off (third-person singular simple present rips off, present participle ripping off, simple past and past participle ripped off)
- (literally) To pull off by ripping.
- (transitive, slang) To cheat or swindle, especially by charging an excessively high or unfair price.
- I can't believe how the car dealerships try to rip off their customers.
- 2017 January 19, Peter Bradshaw, “T2 Trainspotting review – choose a sequel that doesn't disappoint”, in the Guardian[1]:
- But a personal and almost menopausal crisis brings him back to an Edinburgh he hardly recognises. As if in a Sergio Leone film, Renton has an obscure need to return, to confront the demons of his past, in particular the three guys he ripped off after a drug deal at the end of the last story.
- (transitive, slang) To steal.
- 1988 December 18, Christopher Wittke, “Why I Loved Marc Almond From The Minute I First Read About Him”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 23, page 16:
- Rechy's The Sexual Outlaw had been a formative book for me, ever since I ripped it off from a hometown bookstore in my early teens (what was I supposed to do, interact with a clerk?)
- 1990, "The Telltale Head" (The Simpsons season 1 episode 8)
- - Hey, guys. Where'd you get all that great stuff?
- Five-finger discount, man.
- You ripped it off?
- - Hey, guys. Where'd you get all that great stuff?
- (transitive, slang) To copy, especially illegally.
- They ripped off the whole idea from their competitors.
- 2013, “Higgs Boson Blues”, in Nick Cave (lyrics), Push the Sky Away, performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds:
- Robert Johnson and the devil, man / Don't know who's gonna rip off who
- 2017 January 19, Peter Bradshaw, “T2 Trainspotting review – choose a sequel that doesn't disappoint”, in the Guardian[2]:
- Boyle revives some of the stylistic tics which found themselves being ripped off by geezer-gangster Britflicks back in the day, but now the freezeframes are briefer, sharper; the movie itself refers back to the original with variant flashback versions of famous scenes, but also Super 8-type images of the boys’ poignant boyhood in primary school.
Derived terms
editTranslations
editto pull off by ripping
|
(idiom) to steal, cheat or swindle
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(idiom) to charge an exorbitant or unfair rate
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(idiom) to copy, especially illegally