fight off

phrasal verb

fought off; fighting off; fights off

: to defend oneself against (someone or something) by fighting or struggling : to avoid being harmed or overcome by (someone or something) by fighting or struggling

They fought off the attack/attackers.

I'm trying to fight off a cold.

Examples of fight off in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

There were no signs of a home intruder, police said, and Greenberg did not have any defensive wounds from fighting off an attacker. —

Julia Reinstein, ABC News, 4 Feb. 2025 Editor’s tip: Sulfur fights off acne-causing bacteria while calming down redness and inflammation at the same time. —

Christa Joanna Lee, Allure, 4 Feb. 2025 For decades, the focus was on fighting off terrorists and insurgents. —

Dexter Filkins, The New Yorker, 3 Feb. 2025 The statement might strike some as ironic, given that OpenAI is fighting off multiple lawsuits from media organizations, authors, and other artists for using their content without permission to train OpenAI's models. —

Jibin Joseph, PCMAG, 29 Jan. 2025 See all Example Sentences for fight off