pass (someone or something) off as
idiom
: to cause people to wrongly believe that someone or something is someone or something else
amateurs passing themselves off as professionals
She passed the poem off as her own.
Examples of pass (someone or something) off as in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Essentially, anything bigger than a day pack will be hard to pass off as a personal item.
—
Ryan Krogh, Outside Online, 30 Apr. 2025
Offering little or no value, here’s what AI tried to pass off as such – straight from the horse’s mouth – along with comments from yours truly.
—Eli Amdur, Forbes.com, 10 Apr. 2025
Rumors began to spread of agave farmers from the tequila region sneaking off to Oaxaca, at the southern end of Mexico and decidedly outside the parameters of tequila country, to load up their trucks with local agaves to smuggle back into Jalisco and pass off as blue Weber.
—Chantal Martineau, Foreign Affairs, 25 Nov. 2015
Though the real number of people who saw the livestream isn’t known, the scammers were able to fool viewers using AI technology, with a voice convincing enough to pass off as the Tesla CEO’s.
—Maria Mocerino, Interesting Engineering, 25 June 2024
In the show, Halina uses coats to trade and pass off as Aryan.
—Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 15 June 2024
Across all versions, changelings could easily pass off as their human counterparts — their true likeness only exposed by way of trickery or beatings.
—Jessica Wang, EW.com, 7 Sep. 2023
There's a difference between imitating someone’s style for practice or in homage and copying it to pass off as your own.
—Vivian Lam, WIRED, 24 Feb. 2023
Along with fighting academic dishonesty, the tool could be used to detect AI misinformation campaigns or chatbots trying to pass off as human, the company said.
—Peter Weber, The Week, 31 Jan. 2023
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Ryan Krogh, Outside Online, 30 Apr. 2025
Offering little or no value, here’s what AI tried to pass off as such – straight from the horse’s mouth – along with comments from yours truly.
—Eli Amdur, Forbes.com, 10 Apr. 2025
Rumors began to spread of agave farmers from the tequila region sneaking off to Oaxaca, at the southern end of Mexico and decidedly outside the parameters of tequila country, to load up their trucks with local agaves to smuggle back into Jalisco and pass off as blue Weber.
—Chantal Martineau, Foreign Affairs, 25 Nov. 2015
Though the real number of people who saw the livestream isn’t known, the scammers were able to fool viewers using AI technology, with a voice convincing enough to pass off as the Tesla CEO’s.
—Maria Mocerino, Interesting Engineering, 25 June 2024
In the show, Halina uses coats to trade and pass off as Aryan.
—Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 15 June 2024
Across all versions, changelings could easily pass off as their human counterparts — their true likeness only exposed by way of trickery or beatings.
—Jessica Wang, EW.com, 7 Sep. 2023
There's a difference between imitating someone’s style for practice or in homage and copying it to pass off as your own.
—Vivian Lam, WIRED, 24 Feb. 2023
Along with fighting academic dishonesty, the tool could be used to detect AI misinformation campaigns or chatbots trying to pass off as human, the company said.
—Peter Weber, The Week, 31 Jan. 2023
Cite this Entry
“Pass (someone or something) off as.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pass%20%28someone%20or%20something%29%20off%20as. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025.
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