DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 Off adv.  In a general sense, denoting from or away from; as:
 1. Denoting distance or separation; as, the house is a mile off.
 2. Denoting the action of removing or separating; separation; as, to take off the hat or cloak; to cut off, to pare off, to clip off, to peel off, to tear off, to march off, to fly off, and the like.
 3. Denoting a leaving, abandonment, departure, abatement, interruption, or remission; as, the fever goes off; the pain goes off; the game is off; all bets are off.
 4. Denoting a different direction; not on or towards: away; as, to look off.
 5. Denoting opposition or negation. [Obs.]
    The questions no way touch upon puritanism, either off or on.   --Bp. Sanderson.
 From off, off from; off. “A live coal . . . taken with the tongs from off the altar.” --Is. vi. 6.
 Off and on. (a) Not constantly; not regularly; now and then; occasionally. (b) Naut. On different tacks, now toward, and now away from, the land.
 To be off. (a) To depart; to escape; as, he was off without a moment's warning. (b) To be abandoned, as an agreement or purpose; as, the bet was declared to be off. [Colloq.]
 To come off, To cut off, To fall off, To go off, etc. See under Come, Cut, Fall, Go, etc.
 To get off. (a) To utter; to discharge; as, to get off a joke. (b) To go away; to escape; as, to get off easily from a trial. [Colloq.]
 To take off To do a take-off on, To take off, to mimic, lampoon, or impersonate.
 To tell off (a) Mil., to divide and practice a regiment or company in the several formations, preparatory to marching to the general parade for field exercises. --Farrow.  (b) to rebuke (a person) for an improper action; to scold; to reprimand.
 To be well off, to be in good condition.
 To be ill off, To be badly off, to be in poor condition.

 From prep.  Out of the neighborhood of; lessening or losing proximity to; leaving behind; by reason of; out of; by aid of; -- used whenever departure, setting out, commencement of action, being, state, occurrence, etc., or procedure, emanation, absence, separation, etc., are to be expressed. It is construed with, and indicates, the point of space or time at which the action, state, etc., are regarded as setting out or beginning; also, less frequently, the source, the cause, the occasion, out of which anything proceeds; -- the antithesis and correlative of to; as, it, is one hundred miles from Boston to Springfield; he took his sword from his side; light proceeds from the sun; separate the coarse wool from the fine; men have all sprung from Adam, and often go from good to bad, and from bad to worse; the merit of an action depends on the principle from which it proceeds; men judge of facts from personal knowledge, or from testimony.
    Experience from the time past to the time present.   --Bacon.
    The song began from Jove.   --Drpden.
    From high Mæonia's rocky shores I came.   --Addison.
    If the wind blow any way from shore.   --Shak.
 Note: ☞ From sometimes denotes away from, remote from, inconsistent with. “Anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing.” --Shak. From, when joined with another preposition or an adverb, gives an opportunity for abbreviating the sentence. “There followed him great multitudes of people . . . from [the land] beyond Jordan.” --Math. iv. 25. In certain constructions, as from forth, from out, etc., the ordinary and more obvious arrangment is inverted, the sense being more distinctly forth from, out from -- from being virtually the governing preposition, and the word the adverb. See From off, under Off, adv., and From afar, under Afar, adv.
 Sudden partings such as press
 The life from out young hearts.   --Byron.
 ◄ ►