Pull off means to succeed in doing something difficult or risky, even though few people believed you could: pull off a deal, pull off a surprise. You most often hear We pulled it off! The second meaning is to leave a road in order to stop: pull off the motorway.
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pull off + deal/plan/win/surprise; pull + it + off; manage to pull it off; pull off + the road/motorway
- Nobody believed our small team could win the contract, but we pulled it off.
- She pulled off a surprise party without her husband suspecting a thing.
- We pulled off the motorway to get petrol and stretch our legs.
What changed
First versionEveryone said the plan was crazy, but we could pull it off.
RevisionEveryone said the plan was crazy, but we managed to pull it off.
Could might seem natural here, but when talking about the past, could describes a general ability: I could swim at five. For one successful occasion, use managed to: we managed to pull it off. Or, more briefly: we pulled it off.
In its second meaning, pull off is easy to confuse with pull over. Pull off the road means to leave the road, for example to get petrol: We pulled off the motorway for lunch. Pull over means to stop at the side of the road, often because the police tell you to: The police told us to pull over.
Your turn
The deadline looked impossible, but the whole team worked through the weekend and ___ just in time.
Show the answer
pulled it off — The team worked all weekend and finished on time, so they succeeded at something difficult: pulled it off. Put it off means 'postponed', but then they wouldn't have had to work at the weekend, and just in time doesn't fit with that either.
Write about something difficult you managed to do even though few people believed you could. Say what it was and what helped you succeed.
Nobody thought I could learn to drive in a month, but I pulled it off thanks to daily lessons with my uncle.
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