weasel out
Verb
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Verb
weasel out
- (idiomatic, intransitive, often followed by of) To shirk, avoid, or fail to fulfill (a task, responsibility, etc.)
- 1990 Dec 24, "[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601901224,00.html Table of Contents: Is Uncle Sam Being Suckered?]," Time:
- With the costs of Desert Shield likely to double, Congress fumes at those allies who seem to be weaseling out of their pledges to help.
- 2009 Sept 10, "Obama's Big Test ↗," Newsweek (retrieved 16 May 2011):
- And if they try to weasel out that way, Obama is warning them that he'll "call them out."
- 1990 Dec 24, "[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601901224,00.html Table of Contents: Is Uncle Sam Being Suckered?]," Time:
- (idiomatic, transitive) To obtain or extract, especially with effort and by cunning methods.
- 1992 28 Sept., Stanley Reed, "Regarding Henry, Warily ↗" (Book review of Kissinger by Walter Isaacson), Businessweek (retrieved 16 May 2011):
- In an effort to ingratiate himself with the 1968 Nixon campaign, Kissinger offered inside tips that he had weaseled out of friends privy to the Johnson Administration's talks with the North Vietnamese.
- 1993 Apr 10, Steve McKerrow, "Movie shows cheerleader case getting too much media rah-rah," Baltimore Sun, p. 1D:
- [S]ome of the characters we see among the blitzing media—a Houston TV reporter, an "Inside Edition" researcher and this film's producer and writer, James Manos Jr. and Jane Anderson—play themselves, each trying to weasel out the real inside story.
- 1992 28 Sept., Stanley Reed, "Regarding Henry, Warily ↗" (Book review of Kissinger by Walter Isaacson), Businessweek (retrieved 16 May 2011):
- (shirk or avoid) cop out
- (obtain with effort and cunning) dig up, ferret out, sniff out
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003