let slide

let slide (third-person singular simple present lets slide, present participle letting slide, simple past and past participle let slide)

1. (transitive, of intangibles) To let go, allow, release, pass over without action.

   The police officer let the ticket slide when she found her brother-in-law's car illegally parked.

   The administrator let the minor infraction slide with only a disapproving look.

   • 14th century Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

     But nathelees she moste a tyme abyde,

     And with good hope lete her sorrow slyde.

   • 1970, Larry Niven, Ringworld, page 277:

     Which statement Louis prudently let slide.

2. (transitive, of persons) To tolerate a violation of a norm from.

   The judge let me slide on the speeding, but not on a $200 seat-belt violation.

3. (idiomatic) To allow the condition of something to deteriorate due to negligence or apathy.

   He let the farm slide after inheriting it from his father.

4. Used other than with a figurative or idiomatic meaning: see let,‎ slide.