'Shrugging' is a gesture we make with our shoulders. Now I'm not strictly looking for synonyms of the actual gesture of shoulder shrugging, but rather words that convey the same emotion as when someone shrugs. Ideally, I'm looking for a verb.
I recognize there are many reasons to shrug: 2 main reasons being to say 'whatever' or to say 'I don't know'. I'm actually looking for both interpretations (it doesn't have to be one term for both). Again, I'm looking for synonyms for the meaning of the gesture.
Best Answer
The phrase "verbal shrug" is pretty popular and well established:
In literature, it's often used to describe a sound a speaker has just made, or an emotion captured by his body language, without explicitly identifying the "shrug" in question. So it may be that this set phrase is used precisely because English lacks an established word or term which expresses what a shrug expresses.
I dunno.
The Italians are ahead of us on this one. Boh.