Hi
get/let someone off the hook - to allow someone to escape from a difficult situation or to avoid doing something that they do not want to do.
Ex. John’s agreed to go to the meeting in my place, so that lets me off the hook.
idioms.thefreedictionary.com/let+off+the+hook
OK.
Bulldog gets let off the hook.
OK.
Some headlines – at my first glance - were a bit confusing:
Factory farms let off the hook for water pollution, activists say.
RFID let off the royalties hook
Microsoft and HP let off the hook : Mobile technology case thrown out
because of that unalterable let (with Past Participle = Present/Past Simple)
and I firstly mistook them.
But now I’m OK with it, as well.
Scooped, Bested (and let off the hook)
Hmm…
Didn’t understand the heading at all… but as its author isn’t native, let’s it pass without any excursion in semantics…
But what I want to ask.
My dictionary allows the idiom to be used in the meaning ‘to forgive (an offence)’.
It seems to be logical… but it didn’t give any example and I’ve failed to find any real one.
If you agree with my dictionary, could you give an example for that use? (to let (smb.) off the hook = to forgive an offence)?
Tamara