doff
pronunciation
How to pronounce doff in British English:
UK [dɒf]
How to pronounce doff in American English:
US [dɑf]
-
- Verb:
- remove
Word Origin
- doff
- doff: [14] Doff, don [14], and the now obsolete dout [16] and dup [16], contractions respectively of ‘do off, on, out, and up’, preserve the ancient meaning of do, ‘put, place’. They were standard Middle English forms, but gradually fell out of the mainstream language into dialect (from which dout and dup never emerged). Sir Walter Scott, however, included doff and don, in their specific sense ‘remove or put on clothing’, in his long list of medieval lexical revivals (‘My experience has been in donning steel gauntlets on mailed knights’, Fair Maid of Perth 1828), and they have survived as archaisms ever since.
- doff (v.)
- mid-14c., contraction of do off, preserving the original sense of do as "put." At the time of Johnson's Dictionary [1755] the word was "obsolete, and rarely used except by rustics," but it was saved from extinction (along with don) by Sir Walter Scott. Related: Doffed; doffing.
Example
- 1. Doff your stupid habits and live .
- 2. The advanced technology , collective doff device doff .
- 3. Digital oil field of the future , doff
- 4. Romeo , doff thy name ; and for thy name , which is no part of thee , take all myself .
- 5. Small ling ling arrives of nursery school without striking a blowing doff jacket run to play with the child .