palm off

“Palming” an object (as in a playing card) is a type of sleight of hand, secretly removing the desired article and leaving only the undesired one.

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

palm off (third-person singular simple present palms off, present participle palming off, simple past and past participle palmed off)

1. (idiomatic) To sell or dispose of (something) with the intent to deceive; to attempt to pass off a counterfeit or inferior product as genuine.

   Synonyms: pawn off, pass off; foist, fob off; unload, offload

   • 1871, Mark Twain, Journalism In Tennessee‎^[1]:

     The inveterate liars of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake are evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods […]

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 18]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     […] the old mangy parcel he sent at Xmas a cottage cake and a bottle of hogwash he tried to palm off as claret that he couldnt^[sic] get anyone to drink […]

   • 1963, United States Code Annotated‎^[2]:

     (p.359) […] no one is to be allowed fraudulently to palm off upon the public his goods as those of another.
     (p.379) It is a fundamental rule that one man has no right to palm off his goods for sale as goods of a rival dealer […]

Sometimes appears as pawn off, though this is frequently proscribed as an error.^[1][2] Some dictionaries have begun to recognize this form, and some have noted that the phrase pawn upon even predates palm off.^[3][4] Often, pawn off differs slightly in meaning, not carrying the same connotations of trickery as palm off.^[5]

The buyer is usually given as the object of "on" or "upon." So, "palm (something) off on (someone)"

• pam off
• reverse palming off