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Go off   /goʊ ɔf/   Listen
Go off

verb
1.
Run away; usually includes taking something or somebody along.  Synonyms: abscond, absquatulate, bolt, decamp, make off, run off.  "The accountant absconded with the cash from the safe"
2.
Be discharged or activated.
3.
Go off or discharge.  Synonyms: discharge, fire.
4.
Stop running, functioning, or operating.
5.
Happen in a particular manner.  Synonyms: come off, go over.
6.
Burst inward.  Synonym: implode.



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"Go off" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Go off now, Phelim, till I get ready, an' set out to my father. But, Phelim, never breathe a word about him bein' in goal. No one knows it but ourselves—that is, none ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... is', said the Princess, 'for there came a magpie flying with a man's bone, and let it fall down the chimney. I made all the haste I could to get it out, but all one can do, the smell doesn't go off ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... no like nodder carcajo. In de winter tam de carcajo got he's own place to hunt. If nodder wan comes 'long dey mak' de big fight, an' wan gits lick an' he got to go off an' fin' nodder place to hunt. Injun hate carcajo. Marten hate um. Mink, an fox hate um. Deer hate um. All de peoples hate um—de big peoples, an' de leetle peoples. Carcajo so mean even carcajo ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... desolate longing for home and childhood. It was all a dream. That was the end of the matter. Even now, perhaps, his tired old stupid body was lying hunched up, drenched with dew upon the little old seat under the mist-wreathed branches. Soon it would bestir itself and wake up and go off home—home to Sheila, to the old deadly round that once had seemed so natural and inevitable, to the old dull Lawford—eyes and ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... and return to the ship, following a route which I had mentally mapped out, as it seemed to promise easier going than the one by which I had ascended. Taking my time, choosing my ground, and winding hither and thither to avoid obstacles, I arrived at the beach just in good time to go off aboard with the last boatload of holiday makers, all of whom, though hot and weary with their long day's ramble, were full of enthusiasm at the prospect of making their homes on so lovely and fertile a spot and in ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... would have put out his lantern instead of trying to shield it as he came forward. The train pulls out. The first blind is empty, and I gain it. As before the train slackens, the shack from the engine boards the blind from one side, and I go off the other side and ...
— The Road • Jack London

... interested in a conversation, then Belinda had learnt from experience that it was wiser to go off with her devil out of the range of ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... piece would not go off, but the Indians presently shot him through his venomous and murderous heart. And in that very place where he first contrived and commenced his mischief, this Agag was now cut in quarters, which were then hanged up, while his head was carried in triumph to Plymouth, where it ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... said Dr. Arthur, turning gravely to Wych Hazel, 'is a change. If your grace could persuade him to go off for a while, in the right company, he would come back ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... is a pretty hard innimy; and they do talk here in Rome if you don't toe the mark. But ree-ly, you mustn't go off mad (smiling). You must call up with Rocjan and see us; and I ree-ly hope that when your uncle comes you will bring him to my studiyo. I am sure my ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... him permission to go off duty at one o'clock. He hurried back to the telephone and told her that he would be able to see her. She gave him ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... remember, my love, how good she was, and how charming; till this vile moment all her care was to make us happy. Had she but died! But she is gone, the honour of our family contaminated, and I must look out for happiness in other worlds than here. But my child, you saw them go off: perhaps he forced her away? If he forced her, she may 'yet be innocent.'—'Ah no, Sir!' cried the child; 'he only kissed her, and called her his angel, and she wept very much, and leaned upon his arm, and ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... called 'Saint Monday'—at least in the morning. If I am disturbed on any other morning, I—well, I don't like it. But any reasonable person who finds me at home on a Monday morning—against which, I must admit, the chances are strong, for I frequently go off on some harmless jaunt—is quite welcome to me ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... "And you mustn't go off again, and leave him by himself," said their mother to the Curlytops. "There is no ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis

... aunt, I think, is hard of hearing, and gave us many crooked answers. But she told us that the stranger paid for his lodging regularly, and would arrive at the cottage unawares of an evening and stay part of the night ... then he would go off again at cock-crow, and depart she ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... Boulte. "Has my wife told you that you two are free to go off whenever you please? She has been good enough to explain the situation to me. You've been a true friend to me, Kurrell—old ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... "Go off and be hateful if you want to—a lot I care, Miss Katy Halford. I should think you'd be ashamed to act so when you ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... Laban Jones, Abner Rathbun, Meshech Little, do you want to hang for murder? Throw down your arms. You're surrounded on three sides. You can't escape. Throw down your arms and I'll see you're not harmed. Throw away your guns. If one of them should go off by accident in your hands, you couldn't ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... not go off; only the click of the trigger could be heard. Half fainting, his hand dropped to his side. Every fibre within him quivered, his head swam, his lips were parched, and his hand trembled so much that when he laid down the revolver it ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... well, my dear; but you and Malie have been counting your chickens too soon. Harry Revere is now in our employ, and I yesterday sent a runner to him to go off to Savai'i and buy us a hundred tons of yams; and he has ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke

... matter to them." He sighed, and turned toward the new village. "Do you mind, if I sort of—well, hold a farewell ceremony before we go? They won't understand, but they'll feel better than if I just go off...." ...
— Divinity • William Morrison

... partner; and upon Smoke everybody's attention was centered. On the second night he did not leave his cabin, putting out the lamp at nine in the evening and setting the alarm for two next morning. The watch outside heard the alarm go off, so that when, half an hour later, he emerged from the cabin, he found waiting for him a band, not of sixty men, but of at least three hundred. A flaming aurora borealis lighted the scene, and, thus hugely escorted, ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... keep your temper," said Allie laughingly, while she covered his mouth with her hand. "If you say anything more that's saucy, I'll go off and never come back. I didn't want to go to-day; it's too warm. Besides, we'll make up for all this when we go ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... to land and walk home. Boddy caught the rudder lines and leapt on the bank to hand her out; then all the boys in her boat and in Catman's shouted, 'Miss Julia! dear Miss Julia, don't leave us!' and we heard wheedling voices: 'Don't go off with him alone!' Julia bade us behave well or she would not be able to come out with us. At her entreaty Boddy stepped back to his post, and the two boats went forward like swans that have done ruffling ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... him right and left and come back and take what they forgot the first time, and Holly won't do a thing to them. But you don't want to take any chances, away off here like you are. You lock your door good at night, and you sleep with a gun under your pillow. And don't go off anywhere alone. My, even with a gun you ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... on, Madie," coaxed Cleo, linking her arm into that of the dimply girl, "we were just waiting for you to decide all the details. Your dad, and my dad, and Grace's dad may be traveling about all summer, and our mothers are lovely to let us all go off together. We have just been saying this vacation promises to be the biggest event in our lives, next to going on a honeymoon, or having the unlimited joy of the—those who get all sorts of unsolicited compliments," she patched up the "far-away" possibilities. "And when you said 'kinky' ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis

... disposed of. And then Fanny, though very pretty, was "a silly little thing," she said to herself with great candour. Her beauty was not of a kind to increase with years, or even to continue long. The chances were, if she did not go off at once, she would stay too long. Then there were her sisters growing up so fast, mamma's own darlings; Charlotte twelve and Victoria seven, were really quite tall and mature for their years, and at any rate, it would be a relief to have Fanny ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... masquerade, which was no more than their third meeting abroad, completed her ruin, from so practised, though so young a deceiver; and that before she well knew she was in danger; for, having prevailed on her to go off with him about twelve o'clock to his aunt Forbes's, a lady of honour and fortune, to whom he had given reason to expect her future niece, [the only hint of marriage he ever gave her,] he carried her off to the house of the wicked woman, who bears the name of Sinclair ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... in such a state the guns almost go off by themselves. Captain Young, with three ships, met three Dutch men-of-war in the Channel and fired at the first that refused to salute according to the Custom of the Sea. Then the great British admiral, Blake, fired at the great Dutch admiral, van Tromp, ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... said, "Surely my sister finds herself in straits now, as she sends me this ring." And when he had read the letter he bade the king, his brother-in-law, stand up, and declared that he was ready to comply with his sister's wish and to go off at once without delay. He seized his staff and started away, but stopped now and then for his brother-in-law and his suite, to whom he gave a good chiding for their slowness.[FN423] They continued thus their march until ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... I never saw those two men before. If I could once get inside the cave, I could tell whether or not it was the one where I was practically held a prisoner. But I'm sure it is. I know some of the men used to go off every day with guns, and not come back until night. I have no doubt they were on guard, just as these two are. And, also, I think I heard them speak of a second entrance to the cavern. The one we just saw may not be the main one, through which I ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton

... Look out, or it may go off," added Tom, as he held out the weapons, thinking Hans would ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield

... possessing a diamond ring did not remove her discontent—and a shamed feeling stole over her, causing her to wonder how loudly she had screamed at Gay and how she must have looked when she started to strike him in her blind rage; how horrible it was to go off on tangents just because you wanted rings on your fingers and bells on your toes when all the time the world did contain such persons as Mary Faithful, who did not choose to claim a paradise which longed ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... you see I must hold on to my mother-in-law: she is my only real stay. While pleasant and friendly as you are, my dear Colonel"—with a pretty little toss of her head—"you will go off shooting, or hunting, or Heaven knows what, and it is quite possible I may never see ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... her money and took a kind leave of her, she, poor wretch, desiring that I would forgive my brother John, but I refused it to her, which troubled her, poor soul, but I did it in kind words and so let the discourse go off, she leaving me though in a great deal of sorrow. So I to my office and left my wife and people to see her out of town, and I at the office all the morning. At noon my wife tells me that she is with much ado gone, and I pray God bless her, but it seems she was to the last ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... his straw and his grain to his granary." To families divided by questions of money and inheritance he said: "Look at the mountaineers of Devolny, a country so wild that the nightingale is not heard there once in fifty years. Well, when the father of a family dies, the boys go off to seek their fortunes, leaving the property to the girls, so that they may find husbands." To the cantons which had a taste for lawsuits, and where the farmers ruined themselves in stamped paper, he said: ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... becomes "oiled," and may be considered as "done for," unless, indeed, the whole process be gone through again, starting off with fresh syrup and soap, using up the greasy mass as if it were pure oil. This liability to "go off," increases as the amandine nears the finish; hence extra caution and plenty of "elbow grease" must be used during the addition of the last two pounds of oil. If the oil be not perfectly fresh, or if the temperature of the atmosphere be above the average of summer heat, it will be almost ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... in all her motherly life got out of patience when she was sitting. She had been rather proud of the eggs,—they were unusually large,—but she never felt quite comfortable on them, and whether it was because she used to get cramp and go off the nest, or because the season was bad, or what, she never could tell; but every egg was addled but one, and the one that did hatch gave her more trouble than any chick she ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... who are the victims of preventable misfortunes, show a vast passive indifference to the excitement of the foreigners; they wait for it to go off, like the effervescence of soda-water. And gradually strange hesitations creep into the mind of the bewildered traveller; after a period of indignation, he begins to doubt all the maxims he has hitherto accepted without question. Is it really wise to be always guarding ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell

... good-looking, merry as a grig, a live Yankee for faculty, and pretty forehanded too, though he hadn't set up for himself then. I more than suspicioned he'd ruther live with Uncle 'Siah, and see Harnah from morning to night, than go off and take up land for himself; or maybe he didn't feel as if he'd the peth to take right hold of new land all alone. Anyway, there he wor, and there he stuck, right squar in my way, do as much as I might to git ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... then care so much for me?—that's fair; for I am her friend, and will prove it to her, by giving up my own fancies to hers: so trust me with her, tete-a-tete,—young gentleman; go off, if you please, and do your ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... esteemed for the warlike instincts of its inhabitants, we have decided to appoint him commander of the valiant and blood-thirsty band of archers now stationed at Si-chow, in the Province of Hu-Nan. We have spoken. Let three guns go off in honour of the noble and invincible Ling, now and henceforth a commander in the ever-victorious Army of the Sublime Emperor, brother of the Sun and Moon, and Upholder of the Four Corners ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... Antoinette Holiday girl, he had none too much hope. Max Hempel never hoped much on general principles, so far as potential stars were concerned. He had seen too many of them go off fizz bang into nothingness, like rockets. It was more than likely he was on a false trail, that people who had seen the girl act in amateur things had exaggerated her ability. He trusted no judgment but his own, which was perhaps ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... remembrance of that overheard conversation which she could not help applying, but much more from an indefinable sense that at these times there were always eyes upon her. She tried to charge the feeling upon her consciousness of their having heard that same talk, but it would not the more go off. And it had no chance to wear off, for somehow the occasions never lasted long; something was sure to break them up; while an unfortunate combination of circumstances, or of connivers, seemed to give ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... Euthymedus to supper. Xantippe, in great rage, went into them, and overset the table. Huthymedus, rising in a passion to go off, My dear friend, stay, said Socrates, did not a hen do the same thing at your house the other day, and did I show any ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... of Mejdel esh-Shems, down in the valley underneath Mount Hermon. We remained in camp there over Sunday, and on Sunday afternoon my friends were resting in their tent. Suleyman and I had seized that opportunity to go off for a ramble by ourselves, which did us good. We were returning to the camp in time for tea, when a crowd of fellahin came hurrying from the direction of our tents, waving their arms and shouting, seeming very angry. Suleyman called out to them to learn ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... found Amelia's milliners for her and regulated her household and her manners. She drove over constantly from Roehampton and entertained her friend with faint fashionable fiddle-faddle and feeble Court slip-slop. Jos liked to hear it, but the Major used to go off growling at the appearance of this woman, with her twopenny gentility. He went to sleep under Frederick Bullock's bald head, after dinner, at one of the banker's best parties (Fred was still anxious that the balance of the Osborne property should be transferred ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... spend all their lives in harrying and burning other countries. When the seas were quiet in the long, summer days, they would go off, as I have told you, on their wild expeditions. But when summer was over, and the seas began to grow rough and stormy, the viking bands would go home with their booty and stay there, to build their houses, reap their fields, and, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... without being hit, just as a big native ran at him with a tomahawk. He hadn't time to put his Snider to his shoulder; but that nigger gave his last jump anyway, for I saw the rifle go off and the nigger topple over. In another five seconds he had lifted the supercargo up, thrown him over his left shoulder, and was running down ...
— Sarreo - 1901 • Louis Becke

... lady like you to go off with the likes of 'er," this referred to Fanny, "it hardly seems seemly to me, Miss. Not that Miss Bellairs ain't all right in her own way, but it is not your way. Mark my words, Miss, you ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... be imposed upon; yet they were not fools, and occasionally if their master went too far in bullying and abusing them and compelling them to work overtime every day, they would have sudden violent outbursts of rage and go off without any pay at all. What became of their sister he never knew: but none of the four brothers ever married; they lived together always, and two died in the village, the other two going to finish their lives ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... character of clock and clockwork resurrected on that day. There will be the Catholic clock with his beads, and the Episcopalian clock with his ritual. There will be an old clock resurrected on that day wearing a broadcloth coat buttoned up to the throat; and when he is wound up he will go off with a whizz and a bang. He will get up out of the dust shouting, "hallelujah!" and he will proclaim "sanctification!" and "falling from grace!" and "baptism by sprinkling and pouring!" as the only true doctrine by which men shall go sweeping through ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... indifferent to it to-morrow. This fickleness of taste is as dangerous as exaggeration; and both spring from the same cause. Do not deprive them of mirth, laughter, noise, and romping games, but do not let them tire of one game and go off to another; do not leave them for a moment without restraint. Train them to break off their games and return to their other occupations without a murmur. Habit is all that is needed, as you have ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... causes of our never promoting him into the ostensible magistracy; besides, his temper was exceedingly brittle; and in the debates anent the weightiest concerns of the public, he was apt to puff and fiz, and go off with a pluff of anger like a pioye; so that, for the space of more than five-and-twenty years, we would have been glad of his resignation; and, in the heat of argument, there was no lack of hints to that effect from more than one ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... her acceptance of the hero's love, the token given to the hero, etc. The hero is obliged to pick the princess out from among her eleven maids who look exactly like her. In Pitre, No. 95, we find practically the same incidents recorded: two older sons of a merchant go off to seek their fortunes, and lose their heads because they cannot discover the princess "within a year, a month, and a day." The youngest comes in turn to the same country, wagers his head, and searches a year and fifteen days in vain. ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... and ready to go off; I sent word to our distant neighbors that we were about to blast, and they had better come up until it was over. My courtesy was repaid by a very profane answer, accompanied with a request ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels

... said to Suzanne a little later as we strolled in the direction of the fig-trees, "how did it go off—my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various

... keep your warnings for mediums, clairvoyants, and the like," said the other tartly. He was half amazed, half alarmed even while he said it. It was the personal application that annoyed him. "They are rather apt to go off their heads, ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... there with her mother. Cicely had always understood him when he explained to her how inferior school was, because nobody took any interest in beasts or birds except to kill them; or in drawing, or making things, or anything decent. They would go off together, rambling along the river, or up the park, where everything looked so jolly and wild—the ragged oak-trees, and huge boulders, of whose presence old Godden, the coachman, had said: "I can't think but what these ha' been washed here by the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... did not turn out to be something of a shrew, before her husband was done with her, I am much mistaken. Possibly, however, Shakspeare's sarcasm might bear a more general interpretation, and implies that women in an argument seldom meet the true issue presented to them, but are prone to go off at a tangent on some side quibble, and to repel the arguments of their antagonists by the subtlety of their inventions rather than by the cogency of their logic. I appeal to my friend, the sage of Cattaraugus, who ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... won't suppose anything of the sort! It makes me sick to think of nothing coming of it!—Let's go off at once, and ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... let loose. The woods are a mass of whistling shell and shrapnel. Every time the big twelves go off the flash lights up the entire camp like a flashlight picture, then the ground heaves and tumbles like old Lake Michigan does on ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... not much hurt," replied the preacher; "but I have received a blow on the head, which has stunned me. The faintness will go off presently. You were the cause ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... I switch off from Christianity as Carlyle did? Because I hope that I was truer to natural reason; but chiefly because God had given me such an amount of infused lights and graces that I was forced to seek a guide or go off into extravagant fanaticism. They were ready to encourage me in the latter. George Ripley said to me, 'Hecker, what have you got to tell? Tell us what it is and we ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... [Who has listened to his outburst in a soft of coma] You are a strange man! One of these days you'll go off your head if you ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... tell. Jake went off in his boat one morning before daylight; he was seen to go off, and that was the last ever seen of him around here, but I've my idea. They say he was drowned, that he was run over by a steamer and went to the bottom, boat and all, but I tell you Jake was too good a sailor to be run down by a big steamer on a clear day. No, no, I never ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey

... be of any use," William Welch asked, after a pause, "for me to offer the redskins that my wife and I will go out and put ourselves in their hands if they will let the canoe go off without pursuit?" ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... Killblazes?" said the lady: "he's a dear old man, and I'm quite ready to go off with him this minute. Or was it that delight of an old bishop? He's got a lock of my hair now—I gave it him when he was Papa's chaplain; and let me tell you it would be a hard matter to find another now in the ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a doubt, that if I were to reside in London, the exquisite zest with which I relished it in occasional visits might go off, and I might grow tired of it. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... or he'll go off and kill himself with shame," he whispered laughingly in her ear. "He means all right, but he's picked up so much slang here that he's about forgotten how to talk English, and it's nigh on to four years since ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte

... done wonders; you have shaken the Eildon hills with your roaring: you may now lay by your artillery for the rest of the day. Maida,' continued he, 'is like the great gun at Constantinople; it takes so long to get it ready, that the smaller guns can fire off a dozen times first: but when it does go off, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... "Very sorry to hear you don't hit it off with Mrs. Grunch; I always thought you were such a happy couple." His wife's family said, "Poor Gladys! what a life she must have had!" His own family said, "Poor John! what a life she must have led him to make him go off with that adventuress!" Several people identified the adventuress as Miss Crook, the Secretary of the local Mothers' Welfare League, of which John ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various

... In any event make your contentions easy to remember. Most of us go a long way towards settling our own minds on a puzzling question when we repeat to some one else arguments that we have read or heard. If you can so sum up your argument that your readers will go off and unconsciously retail your points to their neighbors, you probably have them. On the other hand, when you have finished your argument, if you start in to hedge and modify and go back to points that have not had enough ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... my life. Either Saturday or Sunday afternoon I go off duty. Then I dive into the country and visit my dog, who is well cared for. We spend a hilarious few hours, and Lancaster Gate is never mentioned. In the servants' hall, by the way, I am credited with a delicate wife—an impression which I have taken care ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... Miss Aline, you mustn't go off and leave us in this fix." Drops of water stood on the forehead of the Second Reader. His hands dropped to his side with a gesture of despair. His companion kept to the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... night, every female seems to own a mate of some kind, and be on the watch for him. Then the engines give a snarl, and carriages make a grand start and go off in a line, stringing down Ocean Avenue a mile or so, and leaving clouds of dust rolling along the beach, each driver going it as if he were crazy to leave all ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... mainly over (not around) boulders averaging six feet high, and in the course of the journey climb up and jump from the top of one precipice like Niagara, and three steeples, each a hundred and twenty feet high; and then put the horses down, in an exposed place, without anybody to watch them, and go off to indulge in some other idiotic ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... vaudeville—and when one night the astonished Lady Agnes saw him stand up and dance, and complimented him upon his elegance and activity, the mendacious little rogue asserted that he had learned to dance in Paris, whereas Anatole knew that his young master used to go off privily to an academy in Brewer-street, and study there for some hours in the morning. The casino of our modern days was not invented, or was in its infancy as yet; and gentlemen of Mr. Foker's time had not the facilities of acquiring the science of dancing which are enjoyed ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... all voices were hushed as up the poop-ladder comes the commander Don Miguel in his black armour, who, looking long and steadily to windward, gives a sign with his gauntleted hand, whereon divers of the officers go off hot-foot, some to muster the long files of arquebusiers, others to overlook the setting of more sail and the like. And now was a prodigious cracking of whips followed by groans and cries and screaming ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... had told her. Of course. The last thing desired by that clever rogue, who used petticoats for stalking-horses and was not above hiding behind them for the safety of his own skin, was for the engineered "attack" to go off prematurely, landing only Varney and failing to "get" Maginnis. Warnings that the two should not go out together from ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... of dolors and aches; yea, heats, colds, and fevers sink into all our parts alike. But pleasures, like gales of soft wind, move simpering, one towards one extreme of the body and another towards another, and then go off in a vapor. Nor are they of any long durance, but, as so many glancing meteors, they are no sooner kindled in the body than they are quenched by it. As to pain, Aeschylus's Philoctetes affords ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... became so good for nothing, that he could not obtain employment as a farm hand anywhere in the neighbourhood, and was obliged to go off to a distance to get work. This, to him, was not felt to be a very great trial, for it removed him from the sight of his half-fed, half-clothed children, and dejected, suffering wife; and he could, therefore spend with more freedom, and fewer touches, of compunction, the greater portion ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur

... meeting of the Raisin Growers' Association, and the boys were busy organizing an athletic club, on the memorable night of Manuel's treachery. No one saw him and Buck go off through the orchard on what Buck imagined was merely a stroll. And with the exception of a solitary man, no one saw them arrive at the little flag station known as College Park. This man talked with Manuel, and money chinked ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... Medb go into the palace. "Let us go away," says Ailill, that we may see the chase-hounds at hunting till the middle of the day, and until they are tired." They all go off afterwards to ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... I agree with you entirely," said I. "Unless such affairs go off just right they are stiff and ghastly. People who are bent on paying us a compliment will have an opportunity to come to our funerals ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... the tinware at pawnbroker's rates, less cost of advertising, bade the burglar good-night, closed the window after him, and retired to headquarters to report. Next morning we sent for the burglar-alarm man, and he came up and explained that the reason the alarm did not 'go off' was that no part of the house but the first floor was attached to the alarm. This was simply idiotic; one might as well have no armor on at all in battle as to have it only on his legs. The expert now put the whole second story on the alarm, charged ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... accompany her husband as far as Mayence, and remain there during the war, with her daughter. At the last moment she came near missing even this. Napoleon wanted to go off alone, but she wept so much, besought him so earnestly, that he took pity on her and gave her leave to enter his carriage; she had but a single chambermaid with her. Her household was to ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... happens to have committed some crime against the State. {124} Aeschines knew this as well as I; and yet he chose to make a ribald attack instead of an accusation. At the same time, it is not fair that he should go off without getting as much as he gives, even in this respect; and when I have asked him one question, I will at once proceed to the attack. Are we to call you, Aeschines, the enemy of the State, or of myself? Of myself, of course. What? And when you might have exacted the penalty from me, on behalf ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes

... part of New York is left to do without the Gospel. Very many of the churches are closed. The ministers are, many of them, delicate men, and they cannot bear the strain of an unbroken year of preaching. So they shut up their churches during the warm season, go off to Long Branch, Saratoga, or the mountains, or cross the ocean. With the fall of the leaves, they come back to town by the score, and their churches are again opened "for preaching." Don't be deceived by their robust ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... let the other end of the pipe dip into a bottle, the vapor or gas from the candle will mix with the air there; and if you set fire to the mixture of gas from the candle and air in the bottle, it would go off with a bang." ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... case you couldn't make love to me with any sort of propriety. Hold, hold, Willy, dear! don't go off angry; sit down here, I insist; nay, now, I'll box your ears again if you don't obey me; there, you'll feel perfectly cool in a moment. For shame! Bill, to get angry at a ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... jumpy, and this sort of carelessness makes me nervous, particularly as the story is going about that the King came near being assassinated in the station of his home town when he was leaving. Man fired point blank at his face, but gun didn't go off or some one knocked up the man's arm. Did you notice that he looked about rather apprehensively when he arrived, at the station ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... and be killed," said Harry; "but we need be in no hurry; if he didn't go off at first he is safe enough somewhere near here, depend ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston

... come, child," said Mrs. Derrick,—"what do you think I'll make of such a handful of things as that? To be sure Cindy's cleaning up to-day, but I'm pretty smart, yet. Go off and study arithmetic if you want to. Have ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... make the young gentleman pay up handsome, if so be the old gentleman went off the hooks. And if so be he and I should go off together like, why you'd carry on, of course. You'll have the ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... where the devil are you going? It's dark out of doors.' 'To Tchaplino.' 'But what's taking you to Tchaplino, ten miles away?' 'I am going to stay the night at Sophron's there.' 'But stay the night here.' 'No, I can't.' And Yermolai, with his Valetka, would go off into the dark night, through woods and water-courses, and the peasant Sophron very likely did not let him into his place, and even, I am afraid, gave him a blow to teach him 'not to disturb honest folks.' But none ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev

... in the body without partaking of any of the attributes of the body. It is, therefore, likened to a drop of water on a lotus leaf, which, though on the leaf, is not yet attached to it, in so much that it may go off without at all soaking or drenching any part of the leaf. Yogajitatmakam is yogena jito niruddha atma chittam yena tam, as explained by ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... who hijacked planes on September the 11th were trained in Afghanistan's camps, and so were tens of thousands of others. Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... Dinah dear." Unshakable conviction was in Biddy's voice. "I got up late, and I had to get Miss Isabel up in a hurry to go off in the motor. But I missed the letters directly after she was gone, and I hadn't left the room—except to call her. No one had been in—not unless they slipped in in those few minutes while me back was ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... more discovery of Halley, furnishing directly a new triumph for the theory. He noticed that Newton ascribed parabolic orbits to the comets which he studied, so that they come from infinity, sweep round the sun, and go off to infinity for ever, after having been visible a few weeks or months. He collected all the reliable observations of comets he could find, to the number of twenty-four, and computed their parabolic orbits by the rules laid down by Newton. His object was to find out if any of ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

... when he comes out, as black as any sweep, he slips out of the overalls, gives them a whack against the wall, folds them up tight, and crams them into the black bag; has a dive in the pail, and is soon ready to go off somewhere else. But he tells me something about the boiler before he goes—not ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor

... you. There was nothing really for Norah to do, so I told her she could go off and stay ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs

... in thinking, my dear, That things would be different if Robert was here; I guess he'd a stayed but for Archibald Grace. And helped with the chores and looked after the place; But Archie, he heard from that Eben Carew, And went wild to go off to the gold-diggings, too; And so they must up and meander out West, And now they are murdered—or missing, at best— Surprised by that bloody, marauding "Red Wing," 'Way out in the ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... and Hand-wrists with an Oyl the Spirit brings them (which smells raw) and then they are carried in a very short time, using these words as they pass, Thout, tout a tout, tout, throughout and about. And when they go off from their Meetings, they say, Rentum, Tormentum ... all are carried to their several homes in a short space.' Alice Duke gave the same testimony, noting besides that the oil was greenish in colour. ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... various perquisites, among them that of begging for broken victuals from house to house. He offers old blankets to his god, and his child's playthings are bones. The Dhed's status is equally low. If he looks at a water jar he pollutes its contents; if you run up against him by accident, you must go off and bathe. If you annoy a Dhed he sweeps up the dust in your face. When he dies, the world is so much the cleaner. If you go to the Dheds' quarter you find there nothing but a heap ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... course is to dash past quickly and get it over. The result was not altogether a success. The fact that a horrible monster had sped by was sufficient to produce panic, and the first impulse of the bullock was to rush off the road to some place of safety. In India it is easy to go off the track at any point, because there is often neither wall nor hedge, and the surrounding country may be uneven and intersected with beds of ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... raised her head and spoke proudly. "But you're my twin and my other half, better than all the Billys in creation, and I ought to stay with you. What's more, I don't mean to go off again till you can go with me. Billy is Billy, and good fun; but you—" she cuddled her head against him with one of her rare demonstrations of ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... good steer when you suggested this sky stuff. I don't believe a flying man could be very bad—up there in the clouds in a world all his own. Whenever I felt as if I must break over the traces and go off for a time, I'd just get into my little old flier and hit the high spots and that would give me more thrills than all the thirst parlors ever brought. I am going soon to fly for France. In fact, I'm ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... and that, with the single exception of that one woman who tried to poison him, nobody but one man—this particular one man—has ever made any attempt to harm the boy. Fanatics, like those Cingalese, cleave to an idea to the end, Mr. Narkom; they don't cast it aside and go off at another tangent. You have heard what Lady Chepstow says the native women told her: the boy was sacred; their priests had commanded them to appease Buddha by doing homage to him until the tooth was found, and the tooth has not been found up to the present day! That means that ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... have sprinted a little and kept ahead, we would either have outflanked them or have had the finest imaginable ride with every chance of running the fellows down. As things turned out, I couldn't go off with the troopers until I found that you ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... standing round him," explained Lord Standon, "and when Vermont came up the man seemed to go off his head, and practically said he had sold the race. Of course, it was all nonsense, though I believe Lord Barminster is having some ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... pain of a consumption from the mass of corrupted matter and ulcerated humours in our constitution, which he hoped was not so bad as it was imagined;—but he verily feared, that in some violent push, we should go off, all at once, in a state-apoplexy;—and then he would say, The Lord have ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... cannot for a moment allow some of the sophistries with which the Reverend Author has encumbered the question, to escape without castigation. He may not first court an appeal to the School of Apostolical Interpretation; and then, before the result of that appeal has been ascertained, go off in praise of the illumination of the present age; and claim to represent the Theological mind of Europe in his own person. "Educated persons," (he has the impertinence to assert,) "are beginning to ask ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... but hushed as midnight silence go: He will not have your acclamations now. Hence, you unthinking crowd!— [The Common People go off on both parties. Empire, thou poor and despicable thing, When such as these make or unmake ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... What, when there is a printed order from the government stuck over the whole mine that nobody is to leave carrion about! You go off directly and bury your carrion or you will get into trouble, young man." And the official's ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... time to time, as her look dwelt on Laura, she was conscious of certain guilty reserves and concealments in her own breast. She wished Hubert had more sense—she hoped to goodness it would all go off nicely! But of course it would. Polly was an optimist and took all things simply. Her anxieties for Laura did not long resist the mere pleasure of the journey and the trip, the flatteries of expectation. What a very respectable and, on the whole, good-looking young man was Mr. Seaton! Polly had met ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward



Words linked to "Go off" :   burst, explode, take flight, fall in, collapse, halt, take place, fly, occur, give, give way, cave in, hap, fall out, break, pass, pass off, happen, stop, founder, go on, come about, levant, flee



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