From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpass off phrasal verb1 pass off well/badly etcWAY/MANNER if an event passes off well, badly etc, it happens in that way The visit passed off without any serious incidents.2 pass somebody/something off as something to make people think that someone or something is another thing They bought up pieces of old furniture and passed them off as valuable antiques. He passed himself off as a doctor. → pass→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
pass somebody/something off as something• This is the kind of thing a man who passes himself off as a fashion consultant can be expected to know.• As a childless wife can only suffer, there would be no point in passing an intersexual off as a woman.• Though the doubt is really an expression of not-being-committed, it passes itself off as an excuse for not-committing.• Equally, it is an offence for a private company to pass itself off as being a public company and viceversa.• I wonder how many years unqualified people could pass themselves off as consultant thoracic surgeons, for example, without detection.• They tried to pass the crystals off as diamonds.• Anyone trying to pass these absurdities off as fiction would have been laughed out of Hollywood.• We could go in and pass ourselves off as invited guests by being brazen.• But what more could you expect from the bunch of monkeys trying to pass themselves off as judges?• The agents managed to pass themselves off as wealthy businessmen.From Longman Business Dictionarypass something ↔ off phrasal verb [transitive] to pretend that something is more valuable than it really is in order to deceive peoplepass something off as somethingThe company had passed off brand-name drugs as its own. → pass→ See Verb table 