דָּחָה אוֹתוֹ בְּקַשׁ, דָּחָה בְּקָנֶה רָצוּץ, דְּחִיָּה בְּקַשׁ

ביטוי (אנגלית)

To dismiss with a flimsy excuse/ to put off with a vague reply/ to give a non-committal reply

הגדרה (אנגלית)

By metaphor: He dismissed him without anything. He gave an excuse or a vague or insincere answer. He did not relate to him seriously and dismissed him with words of 'so what.'

("He said to him: 'They were created from mere breath.' Seeing his students looking at each other, he said to them: 'It is hard in your eyes that I dismissed my enemy with a straw'" - Hullin 27b, and similarly: "His students said to him, 'Rabbi, to these you dismissed with a broken reed, what do you answer us?' Rabbi Levi returned and explained to them" - Shemot Rabbah (Vilna) Parashat Yitro, Parasha 29, and similarly: "To this one he dismisses with a straw, to that one he extends a reed, to this one he answers with a soft tongue, and to that one he establishes a fitting ruling" - H. Hazaz/ Dorot HaRishonim, 73)