English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I have two questions:
First question: what is the exact meaning of "get away with"? For example in this sentence "Do you think I can get away with wearing pants?". Does it mean "I don't feel like to wear anything else"?
And the second question is: What is difference between "get out of" and "get away with"?
For example, in the sentence "My boss called me a meeting, and I couldn't get out of it", can I use "get away with it" instead of "get out of it"?
1.Do you think I can get away with wearing pants?
This could be a question from an employee of an organisation that requires ladies to wear skirts or dresses.
- My boss called me [for] a meeting, and I couldn't get out of it.
get out of it
get away with it
Both phrasal verbs are defined further down in Cambridge Dictionary.
Using get out of it is more appropriate for this example.
get out of sth
— phrasal verb with get verb
to avoid doing something that you do not want to do, especially by giving an excuse:
I think her backache was just a way of getting out of the housework.
get away with sth
— phrasal verb with get verb
to succeed in avoiding punishment for something:
If I thought I could get away with it, I wouldn't pay my taxes at all.
They are not interchangeable. Here is a dictionary:
To answer your second question first:
To get out of doing something is to find a way of not having to do it.
To get away with doing something is to do it without looking foolish or inappropriate, or without being punished (depending what it is!).
"Do you think I can get away with wearing pants?" (presumably said by an American woman!) suggests that she would like to wear trousers to a social event where they might be considered too informal.
