SET OFF • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Set off

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/sɛt ɔf/ Listen

Set off

verb

Put in motion or move to act. Synonyms: activate, actuate, spark, spark off, touch off, trigger, trigger off, trip. "Actuate the circuits"

Leave. Synonyms: depart, part, set forth, set out, start, start out, take off.

Direct attention to, as if by means of contrast. Synonym: bring out. "I set off these words by brackets"

Cause to burst with a violent release of energy. Synonyms: blow up, detonate, explode.

Make up for. Synonyms: cancel, offset.

Set in motion or cause to begin.

Provoke or stir up. Synonyms: incite, instigate, stir up. "Set off great unrest among the people"

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Etymology of 'Set off'

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"Set off" Quotes from Famous Books

... shared his Americanism. She wrote home that she had never seen an assembly room in America which did not exceed that at St. James in point of elegance and decoration, and that the women of the Court, in all their blaze of diamonds set off with Parisian rouge, could not match the blooming health, the sparkling eye, and modest deportment of the dear girls of her native land. When presented to the King, she declared that her reception stung her like an adder, although His Majesty was ...

— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... time Leckler knew that the most valuable slave on his plantation was working his way toward the North and freedom. He did not go back home, but paced the floor all night long. In the early dawn he hurried out, and the hounds were put on the fugitive's track. After some nosing around they set off toward a stretch of woods. In a few minutes they came yelping back, pawing their noses and rubbing their heads against the ground. They had found the trail, but Josh had played the old slave trick of filling his tracks with cayenne pepper. The dogs were soothed, and taken deeper ...

— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... no end to the delicate flattery which may be set off against Pope's ferocious onslaughts upon his enemies. If one could have a wish for the asking, one could scarcely ask for a more agreeable sensation than that of being titillated by a man of equal ingenuity in caressing one's pet vanities. The art of administering such consolation ...

— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... horror of memory—seeing Hurd's figure cross the moonlit avenue from dark to dark. Where was he? Had he escaped? Suddenly she set off running, stung by the thought of what might have already happened under the eyes of that unhappy ...

— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... them, all of which were full of human beings to sell for slaves, and of cattle. The officers who bought these places from Eumenes were supplied by him with siege-artillery to take them, and the proceeds of the plunder were set off against the arrears of pay due to the soldiers. This proceeding made Eumenes very popular with his army, indeed, when a proclamation was distributed in his camp by contrivance of the enemy, in which a reward of a hundred talents and ...

— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

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