"off the cuff" meaning in English

See off the cuff in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Etymology: Purported to be from the habit by after-dinner speakers of jotting a few notes on the cuff of the sleeve. Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase}} off the cuff
  1. In an off-the-cuff manner. Derived forms: off-the-cuff [adjective] Related terms: on the cuff Translations (in an off-the-cuff manner): aus dem Stegreif (German), ohne nachzudenken (German), aus dem Stand (German), aus dem Handgelenk (German)
{
  "etymology_text": "Purported to be from the habit by after-dinner speakers of jotting a few notes on the cuff of the sleeve.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "off the cuff",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
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          "parents": [],
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        },
        {
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          "parents": [],
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        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "adjective"
          ],
          "word": "off-the-cuff"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2016 February 2, Lee Roden, “Premier League: From Pellegrini to Pep - Why the Engineer made City the ideal destination for Guardiola”, in Yahoo Sport:",
          "text": "Nor was there anything off the cuff about their insistence that Manuel Pellegrini was happy to make the name of his replacement public knowledge, echoing his sentiment that they were “not doing anything behind me” from a press conference earlier in the same day.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "In an off-the-cuff manner."
      ],
      "id": "en-off_the_cuff-en-prep_phrase-OcM9AQWz",
      "links": [
        [
          "off-the-cuff",
          "off-the-cuff"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "on the cuff"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "in an off-the-cuff manner",
          "word": "aus dem Stegreif"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "in an off-the-cuff manner",
          "word": "ohne nachzudenken"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "in an off-the-cuff manner",
          "word": "aus dem Stand"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "in an off-the-cuff manner",
          "word": "aus dem Handgelenk"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "off the cuff"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "adjective"
      ],
      "word": "off-the-cuff"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Purported to be from the habit by after-dinner speakers of jotting a few notes on the cuff of the sleeve.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "off the cuff",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "on the cuff"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English hedges",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English prepositional phrases",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with German translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2016 February 2, Lee Roden, “Premier League: From Pellegrini to Pep - Why the Engineer made City the ideal destination for Guardiola”, in Yahoo Sport:",
          "text": "Nor was there anything off the cuff about their insistence that Manuel Pellegrini was happy to make the name of his replacement public knowledge, echoing his sentiment that they were “not doing anything behind me” from a press conference earlier in the same day.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "In an off-the-cuff manner."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "off-the-cuff",
          "off-the-cuff"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "in an off-the-cuff manner",
      "word": "aus dem Stegreif"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "in an off-the-cuff manner",
      "word": "ohne nachzudenken"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "in an off-the-cuff manner",
      "word": "aus dem Stand"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "in an off-the-cuff manner",
      "word": "aus dem Handgelenk"
    }
  ],
  "word": "off the cuff"
}

Download raw JSONL data for off the cuff meaning in English (1.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (c15a5ce and 5c11237). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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