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

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

Several of the pills were altered to pass off as legitimate oxycodone and Xanax pills, the press release added. —Gina Martinez, CBS News, 12 Oct. 2022

The series is full of jokes that Will and Grace pass off as a couple and Jack, a theater geek and Will’s close friend, acts as the flamboyant counterpart to Will. —André-Naquian Wheeler, Vogue, 19 July 2022