English

off

/ɒf/
In a direction away from the speaker or other reference point.

    Etymology graph

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    Origin

    From Middle English of, from Old English of, af, æf (“from, off, away”), from Proto-West Germanic *ab, from Proto-Germanic *ab (“from”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂epo (“from, off, back”). Doublet of of.

    Cognates

    Cognate with Scots aff (“away, off”), Saterland Frisian oawe, ou (“from”), West Frisian ôf (“away, off”), Dutch af (“from, off”), German ab (“from, off”), German Low German, Luxembourgish of (“off”), Yiddish אָפּ (op, “off”), Danish, Icelandic af (“from, off”), Faroese, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk av (“off”), Swedish af, av (“off”), Gothic 𐌰𐍆 (af, “of, from”); and with Latin ab (“of, from, by”), Ancient Greek ἀπό (apó, “from”), and others.

    From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

    Lineage

    • inheritedMiddle Englishof
      • inheritedOld Englishof
        • derivedOld Englishæf

    Related: English of (doublet), Scots aff, Saterland Frisian oawe, West Frisian ôf, Dutch af, German ab, Luxembourgish of, Yiddish אָפּ, Icelandic af, Norwegian Nynorsk av, Swedish af, Gothic 𐌰𐍆, Latin ab, Ancient Greek ᾰ̓πό

    Words built on it: from off of, one-off, offer, face-off

    Sources