come off
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See also: come-off
English[edit]
Verb[edit]
come off (third-person singular simple present comes off, present participle coming off, simple past came off, past participle come off)
- To become detached.
- One of the wagon wheels came off.
- To have some success; to succeed.
- He tried his Chaplin impression, but it didn't really come off.
- (dated) To have an orgasm.
- 1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Florence, Italy: […] Tipografia Giuntina, […]], →OCLC; republished as Lady Chatterley’s Lover (eBook no. 0100181h.html)[1], Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, August 2011, archived from the original on 11 November 2020:
- She turned and looked at him. ‘We came off together that time,’ he said. […] ‘Don't people often come off together?’ she asked with naive curiosity.
- To appear; to seem; to project a certain quality.
- I'm sorry if I came off as condescending; that wasn't my intention.
- You should be careful about how you come off during interviews.
- 1985 August 24, Bill Kreidler, “Uneven Men's Comedy from Promising Writer”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 7, page 9:
- The task is complicated by the people with whom he must cope, including Rose, the martinet chair of the English Department; Connie, a frustrated, mercurial, and ultimately vindictive colleague (women do not come off well in this book); […]
- To escape or get off (lightly, etc.); to come out of a situation without significant harm.
- 1952, British Bee Journal & Bee-keepers Adviser, volume 80, page 466:
- Well that is precisely what I did, and as I had never heard of using gloves and veil in connection with bees I suppose I came off lightly with one sting on the tip of the nose.
- To occur; to take place; to turn out; to end up.
- It came off as we expected.
- 1870 April–September, Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1870, →OCLC:
- The concluding ceremony came off at twelve o’clock on the day of departure […]
- 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 61:
- And then the wedding came off, and the king gave a grand feast which lasted for many a day, and if they have not done feasting by this, why they are still at it.
- 1916, Arthur J. Rees, John R. Watson, The Hampstead Mystery[2]:
- ‘I was never frightened of any job yet,’ he said, ‘and I'd do this job to-night if the house was full of rozzers,’ Hill pretended that he wasn't particular whether the thing came off or not that night, but all the while he kept egging Fred on to do it.
- (obsolete) To come away (from a place); to leave.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
become detached
to have some success