Off-
prefix
prefix ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Prefix
- 1 Away from; off. morpheme
- 2 not quite; almost morpheme
"off-white"
Etymology
From Middle English of-, from Old English of-, æf- (“off, away, down, un-”), from Proto-Germanic *aba- (“off, away”), combining form of *ab(a), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂epó (“off, away”). Cognate with Dutch af- (“off, away, down”), German ab- (“off, from, down”), Latin ab- (“from, of”), Ancient Greek ἀπο- (apo-, “away from, without”). Doublet of apo- and ab-. Equivalent to off. Compare of.
Related phrases
More for "off-"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.