CAST OFF

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does cast off mean? 

• CAST OFF (verb)
  The verb CAST OFF has 2 senses:

1. get rid of

2. make the last row of stitches when knitting

  Familiarity information: CAST OFF used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CAST OFF (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Get rid of

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

cast; cast off; drop; shake off; shed; throw; throw away; throw off

Context example:

shed your clothes

Hypernyms (to "cast off" is one way to...):

remove; take; take away; withdraw (remove something concrete, as by lifting, pushing, or taking off, or remove something abstract)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "cast off"):

exuviate; molt; moult; shed; slough (cast off hair, skin, horn, or feathers)

abscise (shed flowers and leaves and fruit following formation of a scar tissue)

exfoliate (cast off in scales, laminae, or splinters)

autotomise; autotomize (cause a body part to undergo autotomy)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make the last row of stitches when knitting

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Hypernyms (to "cast off" is one way to...):

run up; sew; sew together; stitch (fasten by sewing; do needlework)

Domain category:

handicraft (a craft that requires skillful hands)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Antonym:

cast on (make the first row of stitches when knitting)

 Context examples 

The old man, I could perceive, often endeavoured to encourage his children, as sometimes I found that he called them, to cast off their melancholy.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I thought, however, that I had cast off every trace of it.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It is strange that in one twelve hours the Abbey should have cast off its foulest weed and should now lose what we are fain to look upon as our choicest blossom.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“I am afraid you will cast off the masts in spite of me.”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

A glandular secreting cell in which the apical portion of the secreting cell is cast off along with the secretory products that have accumulated therein.

(Apocrine Cell, NCI Thesaurus)

To put that dress upon her, and to cast off what she wore—to take her on my arm again, and wander towards home—to stop sometimes upon the road, and heal her bruised feet and her worse-bruised heart—was all that I thowt of now.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

At a particularly bad spot, where a ledge of barely submerged rocks jutted out into the river, Hans cast off the rope, and, while Thornton poled the boat out into the stream, ran down the bank with the end in his hand to snub the boat when it had cleared the ledge.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

I have heard, said he, with great compassion, of the injustice your friend Mr. Ferrars has suffered from his family; for if I understand the matter right, he has been entirely cast off by them for persevering in his engagement with a very deserving young woman.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

We got the starboard tacks aboard, we cast off our weather-braces and lifts; we set in the lee-braces, and hauled forward by the weather-bowlings, and hauled them tight, and belayed them, and hauled over the mizen tack to windward, and kept her full and by as near as she would lie.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)