Pull off

Pull off

“Pull off” is a phrasal verb with two meanings. The first and most common meaning is to succeed in doing something difficult or unexpected . This is about overcoming a challenge or achieving something that seemed unlikely . The second, less common meaning, is more literal : to physically remove something by pulling . We’ll take a look at both of those definitions.

Succeeding in something difficult or unexpected

The most common use of “pull off” or “pull (something) off” is to describe successfully doing something that seemed difficult or unlikely before you did it. The result is impressive ; the result is good. You succeeded at something that you thought—or that others thought—was unlikely.

We always use “pull off” with an object; if it’s understood in the sentence, you can just say “pull it off.” Here’s one from sports. It’s a baseball game I was watching recently: the New York Mets and the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers were leading 2-0 in the ninth inning—that’s the last part of the game—and then Mets came back to score 4 runs in the ninth, their last chance to score. And they won the game 4-2. They pulled off an amazing come-from-behind victory .

ESPN—the sports television network—ESPN has this really annoying graphic in the game that shows the probability that each team will win; they update it throughout the game and I absolutely hate it. I think it’s very distracting .

But at the beginning of that inning, they said the Mets had only a four percent chance of winning the game. So it was unlikely; it was very unlikely. But the Mets pulled it off. They succeeded—they achieved what they wanted—even though it was unlikely, four percent probability, ESPN said. It surprised a lot of people. And it really surprised me . And it surprised and devastated the 40,000 people watching the game in Milwaukee.

You can use this with more everyday things too, but remember, it has to be a success and it has to be surprising or unlikely in some way.

When I was working in consulting , I had to give a lot of presentations . I tried to be as prepared as I could every time, but there are times when that’s not always possible. So imagine someone hasn’t had much time to prepare for a big presentation at work. If she manages to give a good presentation, even though she didn’t prepare, you can say, “She really pulled off a good presentation.” The implication here is that success was uncertain , unlikely even, but the person was able to do it anyway .

You can use this with events. A lot of people plan weddings six months, a year, two years in advance . If a couple manages to plan a wedding and it’s great and they only prepared for a month or two, you can say they pulled off an amazing wedding on short notice .

But not everyone succeeds. You can say “they couldn’t pull it off.” Or, “they tried to pull it off and failed.” This is not a good time for mega-mergers. The U.S. and European regulators look very closely at mergers of two huge companies because they’re worried about monopoly behavior . Even so , two discount airlines in the U.S. announced plans to merge, to combine. They were Jet Blue and Spirit. But they couldn’t pull it off. A court blocked the merger. They were not able to succeed in what they had attempted . So we say they could not pull it off.

Physically removing something

Really quickly, the second, more literal meaning of “pull (something) off” refers to physically removing something by pulling. Most of the time, you would say “take off,” but you can say “pull off” if there’s a pulling movement .

If you come in out of the cold, you pull off your gloves . You can say, “take off your gloves.” But “pull off” specifies that you take them off with a pulling movement. You grab the fingertips with the other hand and you pull—you pull the glove off.

You can pull a bandage off. How do you do it? Do you pull it off quickly or pull it off slowly? I vote for quickly.

If you have plastic or glass containers for leftovers , you would take off the lid. But if you have a container of yogurt or cottage cheese , there’s a plastic or foil lid on top. And you pull the tab to remove the lid. So you can say, you pull off the lid of the yogurt container.

But in all of these cases, “take off” is fine. Only use “pull off” if you’re clearly making a pulling motion.