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KEEP OFF
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (verb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Refrain from entering or walking onto
Example:
stay off the premises
Synonyms:
keep off; stay off
Classified under:
Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing
Hypernyms (to "keep off" is one way to...):
avoid (stay clear from; keep away from; keep out of the way of someone or something)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s somebody
Sense 2
Meaning:
Refrain from certain foods or beverages
Example:
During Ramadan, Muslims avoid tobacco during the day
Synonyms:
avoid; keep off
Classified under:
Hypernyms (to "keep off" is one way to...):
abstain; desist; refrain (choose not to consume)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s something
Context examples:
Whereby, said he, I know, both as she would go to the wureld's furdest end with me, if she could once see me again; and that she would fly to the wureld's furdest end to keep off seeing me.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I had not sat five minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the waiter, coming to stir it, as an excuse for talking, told me that two colliers had gone down, with all hands, a few miles away; and that some other ships had been seen labouring hard in the Roads, and trying, in great distress, to keep off shore.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
The preparations she made for this great work, the aprons she put on, the bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if he understood it all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless she signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it to me, like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round the neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear to other men.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
