☼ Concept Map

''doff'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

↩ 🔳 🔳 🔳

Primary

⁀➴

''doff'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260727004347-00-⌔

doff - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

doff (third-person singular simple present doffs, present participle doffing, simple past and past participle doffed) (chiefly literary and dated except Northern England)

  • (transitive)
    • (chiefly clothing) To remove or take off (something worn on the body such as armour or clothing, or something carried).
      • ✤ Antonyms: don, put on
      • ✤ […] Calidore perceiuing, thought it beſt/To chaunge the manner of his loftie looke;/And doffing his bright armes, himſelfe addreſt/In ſhepheards vveed, and in his hand he tooke,/In ſtead of ſteelehead ſpeare, a ſhepheards hooke, […]1
      • ✤ Thou vveare a Lyons hide, doff it for ſhame,/And hang a Calues skin on thoſe recreant limbes.2
      • ✤ You haue deceiu’d our truſt,/And made vs doffe our eaſie roabes of peace,/To cruſh our old limbs in vngentle ſteele,/This is not vvell my Lord, this is not vvell.3
      • ✤ [T]hen made him d’off thoſe vveeds:/And ſent the Mightie vnto mightie deeds.4
      • ✤ Upon a riſing bank I ſat adovvn,/Then doff’d my ſhoe, […]5
      • ✤ The little vvarriors doff the targe and ſpear, […]6
      • ✤ [J]uſt for fun’s ſake, doff your coat and vvaiſtcoat, and ſvvop vvith Monſieur Grinagain here, and I’ll vvarrant you’ll not knovv yourſelf vvhich is vvhich.7
      • ✤ Beside him ancient Angus stood,/Doffed his furred gown, and sable hood; […]8
      • ✤ I pray thee to call my slaves to unarm me; and when thou thyself doffest those weapons of an ordinary lifeguard’s-man, tell them they never shall above twice more enclose the limbs of one for whom fate has much more fitting garments in store.9
      • ✤ Thou turnedst my mourning to dancing:/Thou doffedst my sackcloth,/And girdedst me round with gladness.10
      • ✤ But in the falling afternoon return’d/The huge Earl Doorm with plunder to the hall./His lusty spearmen follow’d him with noise:/Each hurling down a heap of things that rang/Against the pavement, cast his lance aside,/And doff’d his helm: […]11
      • ✤ [A]t night, or in the rain,/He dons a surcoat which he doffs at morn: […]12
      • ✤ She had doffed the shirt and Bermuda-shorts which she had been wearing and was now dressed for her journey home.13
      • To remove or tip (a hat or other headwear) in greeting or salutation, or as a mark of respect.
        • ✤ The rustics doffed their hats at the clergy.
        • ✤ [H]is courtesy to show,/He doffed, to Marmion bending low,/His broidered cap and plume.14
        • ✤ Were there really seventy-three ways to doff one’s hat?/There were! I’d rather suspected that15
    • (reflexive, archaic except UK, dialectal) To undress (oneself); to divest, to strip.
      • ✤ VVhy art thou troubled Herod? vvhat vaine feare/Thy blood-revolving Breſt to rage doth move?/Heavens King, vvho doffs himſelfe vveake fleſh to vveare,/Comes not to rule in vvrath, but ſerve in love.16
    • (figurative) To cast aside or get rid of (something), to throw off.
      • ✤ * Doff that stupid idea: it will never work.*
      • ✤ […] Romeo doffe thy name,/And for thy name vvhich is no part of thee,/Take all my ſelfe.17
      • ✤ [H]ee (to requite their courteſie) oftentimes d’offeth off his ovvne Nature, and puts of theirs; as vvhen hee becomes as churliſh as a Hogge, or as drunke as a Sovv: […]18
      • ✤ Novv is the time of helpe: your eye in Scotland/VVould create Soldiours, make our vvomen fight,/To doffe their dire diſtreſſes.19
      • ✤ Thus death, vvho kings and tars deſpatches,/Tom’s life hath vainly doff’d;/For though his body’s under hatches,/His ſoul is gone aloft.20
      • ✤ Power laid his rod of rule aside,/And Ceremony doffed his pride.21
    • (textiles)
      • To remove (a bobbin or spindle which is full of spun yarn) from a spinning frame for replacement with an empty one.
      • To remove (small pieces of cotton or other plant fibre, etc.) from a carding cylinder.
    • (obsolete) To put off or turn away (someone) with an excuse, etc.
      • ✤ Euery day, thou dofftſt me, vvith ſome deuiſe Iago;/And rather, as it ſeemes to me, thou keepeſt from me,/All conueniency, then ſupplieſt me, vvith the leaſt/Aduantage of hope: […]22
      • ✤ VVhen to one Goat, they reach that prickly vveed,/VVhich maketh all the reſt forbeare to feed;/Or ſtrevv Tods haires, or vvith their tailes do ſvveepe/The devvy graſſe, to d’off the ſimpler ſheepe; […]23
  • (intransitive, rare)
    • (archaic) To remove or tip a hat or other headwear in greeting or salutation, or as a mark of respect.
      • ✤ And [the goose] feeding high, and living soft,/Grew plump and able-bodied;/Until the grave churchwarden doff’d,/The parson smirk’d and nodded.24
    • (obsolete) Followed by with: to remove or take off something worn on the body, or something carried.
      • ✤ VVhy, look’ye, Major Sturgeon, I don’t much care for your poppers and ſharpes, becauſe vvhy, they are out of my vvay; but if you vvill doff vvith your boots, and box a couple of bouts.25

Noun

doff (plural doffs)

  • (obsolete, rare) Followed by off: an act of putting off or turning away someone with an excuse, etc.
    • ✤ Faith, Lelia has een giuen him the doff off here, and has made hir father almoſt ſtarke mad.26

Etymology

📊 ➺ 🖼️ ➺

Sir Thomas Lipton, founder of the Lipton tea company, doffing his hat (verb sense 1.1.1).

🖼️ ➺

A doffer doffing (verb sense 1.4.1) or removing spindles of yarn from a speeder machine at Pickett Yarn Mill in High Point, North Carolina, U.S.A., in 1937.

🖼️ ➺

A view of the doffing cylinder (bottom) of a breaker card —a machine which disentangles plant fibres so that they can be spun —at Masson Mill, a cotton spinning mill in Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, England, United Kingdom. This doffing cylinder has many pins which doff (verb sense 1.4.2) or remove small pieces of cotton from the main cylinder of the machine. The cotton is then taken off the doffing cylinder by a knife next to that cylinder, and put into the next stage of production.

The verb is derived from Late Middle English doffen (“to take off (clothing); to remove (headwear) as a sign of respect; to remove (grease) by skimming”),27 a contraction of Middle English do off, don off, from Old English dōn of,28 from dōn (“to do; to put; to take off, remove”)29 + of (“from; off”).30 Dōn is derived from Proto-West Germanic ﹡dōn (“to do; to place, put”), from Proto-Germanic ﹡dōną (“to do; to make; to place, put”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ﹡dʰeh₁- (“to do; to place, put”). By surface analysis, do +‎ off. Compare don (by surface analysis, do + on), dout (do + out), dup (do + up).

The noun is derived from the verb.31

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /dɒf/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (General American) IPA: /dɔf/, (cot–caught merger)/dɑf/
  • Audio (General American): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɒf

Printed 2026-07-27.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 36, page 476: ↩

  2. c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 9, column 1: ↩

  3. c. 1597 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The History of Henrie the Fourth; […], quarto edition, London: […] P[eter] S[hort] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1598, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], signature I2, recto: ↩

  4. 1626, Ovid, “The Thirteenth Booke”, in George Sandys, transl., Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished […], London: […] William Stansby, →OCLC, page 259: ↩

  5. 1714, J[ohn] Gay, “Thursday; or, The Spell”, in The Shepherd’s Week. In Six Pastorals, London: […] R. Burleigh […], →OCLC, page 32, lines 20–21: ↩

  6. 1771, James Beattie, The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius. A Poem. Book the First, London: […] E[dward] & C[harles] Dilly, […]; Edinburgh: A[lexander] Kincaid and W[illiam] Creech; and J[ohn] Bell, […], →OCLC, stanza XXXVII, page 19: ↩

  7. 1778, [Frances Burney], “Letter XXI. Evelina in Continuation.”, in Evelina, or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, volume III, London: […] T[homas] Lowndes, […], →OCLC, page 252: ↩

  8. 1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Canto Sixth. The Battle.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC, stanza XI, page 333: ↩

  9. 1830 November – 1831 November (date written), Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter XI, in Tales of My Landlord, Fourth and Last Series. […], volume II (Count Robert of Paris), Edinburgh: […] [Ballantyne and Company] for Robert Cadell; London: Whittaker and Co., published 1 December 1831 (indicated as 1832), →OCLC, page 279: ↩

  10. 1850, Frederic Fysh, “Psalm XXX. A Psalm (a Song at the Dedication of the House) of David.”, in A Lyrical Literal Version of the Psalms. […], volume I, London: Seeleys […], →OCLC, stanza III, verse 11, page 56: ↩

  11. 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Enid”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 77: ↩

  12. 1867, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Adirondacs. A Journal. Dedicated to My Fellow-travellers in August, 1858.”, in May-Day and Other Pieces, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 47: ↩

  13. 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter 7, in Jeeves in the Offing, Harmondsworth, Middlesex[London]: Penguin Books, published 1963 (1975 printing), →OCLC, page 59: ↩

  14. 1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Canto Fifth. The Court.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC, stanza VIII, page 252: ↩

  15. 2010, Jim Burke, “Hail the Chap”, in I Say!, performed by Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer [pseudonym; Jim Burke]: ↩

  16. 1646, Richard Crashaw, “Sospetto d’Herode. Libro Primo.”, in Steps to the Temple. Sacred Poems, with Other Delights of the Muses, London: […] T. W. for Humphrey Moseley, […], →OCLC, stanza 65, page 72: ↩

  17. c. 1591–1595 (date written), [William Shakespeare], * […] Romeo and Iuliet. […]* (Second Quarto), London: […] Thomas Creede, for Cuthbert Burby, […], published 1599, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], signature D2, verso: ↩

  18. 1599 (first performance), B. I. [i.e., Ben Jonson], The Comicall Satyre of Euery Man out of His Humor. […], London: […] [Adam Islip] for William Holme, […], published 1600, →OCLC, Act V, scene iii, signature [P iv], verso: ↩

  19. c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 147, column 2: ↩

  20. [1781?], [Charles] Dibdin, “Poor Tom: Or, The Sailor’s Epitaph”, in The Bull-finch. Being a Choice Collection of the Newest and Most Favourite English Songs which have been Sett to Music and Sung at the Public Theatres & Gardens, London: […] G[eorge] Robinson and R[ichards] Baldwin […], and G. & J. Wilkie […], →OCLC, stanza 3, page 199: ↩

  21. 1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Introduction to Canto Sixth: To Richard Heber, Esq.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC, page 301: ↩

  22. c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragœdy of Othello, the Moore of Venice. […] (First Quarto), London: […] N[icholas] O[kes] for Thomas Walkley, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], pages 77–78: ↩

  23. a. 1638 (date written), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “The Sad Shepherd: Or, A Tale of Robin-Hood”, in The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The Second Volume. […] (Second Folio), London: […] Richard Meighen, published 1640, →OCLC, Act I, scene iiii, page 134: ↩

  24. 1832, Alfred Tennyson, “The Goose”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, stanza V, page 231: ↩

  25. 1763 June 20 (first performance), Samuel Foote, The Mayor of Garret. A Comedy, […], London: […] P[aul] Vaillant, […], published 1764, →OCLC, Act II, scene[ii], page 45: ↩

  26. 1606, A Pleasant Comedie, Called Wily Beguilde. […], London: […] H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Clement Knight; […], →OCLC, [scene xi], page 38, lines [1221–1222]: ↩

  27. “doffen, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

  28. “doff, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2024; “doff, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩

  29. Joseph Bosworth (1882), “dōn”, in T[homas] Northcote Toller, editor, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 208, column 2. ↩

  30. Joseph Bosworth (1882), “of, prep.”, in T[homas] Northcote Toller, editor, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 728, column 2. ↩

  31. “† doff, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023. ↩

Link to original

Secondary

• • •