beg off

1. 1.

   ask for permission to be released from an engagement

   Synonymsexcuse

   Broaderrequest

Questions about beg off

What does beg off mean?

beg off means "ask for permission to be released from an engagement".

What is another word for beg off?

Close synonyms include excuse. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is beg off a common word?

beg off is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.