Off

How to spell off

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce off

What does off mean?

1. adverbSo as to be away from a place, removed, or disconnected from a source of power or attachment.
2. prepositionMoving or positioned away from, or down from, a surface or place.
3. adjectiveNo longer fresh, or no longer happening as planned.

Off in a sentence

• adverb

  Please switch the lights off before you leave the building.

• preposition

  The keys slid off the edge of the kitchen counter.

• adjective

  The milk smelled sour, so she knew it had gone off.

• adverb

  He took the next two days off to recover from the surgery.

• preposition

  Their cottage sits just off the main coastal road.

• adjective

  The outdoor wedding was off once the storm warning arrived.

Where does off come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word 'off' began life as a stressed pronunciation of 'of', which in Old English was spelled 'of' and meant 'away from' or 'down from'. For centuries the two were the same word, and only gradually did writers begin doubling the final consonant to mark the heavier, emphatic sense of moving away or being separated. By the seventeenth century the spelling 'off' had settled in for that stronger meaning, while plain 'of' kept the lighter possessive and partitive duties. This shared ancestry is exactly why the two are still tangled in writing today, especially in non-standard phrases like 'could of'. The double f, then, is a useful visual reminder that 'off' carries the weightier, more physical idea of separation and disconnection.

How the word is built

• off (single Old English root; an emphatic, stressed variant of 'of', later doubling the f to mark the separation sense)