Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also fuck) to leave, to go away.

1929		(con. 1916) F. Manning Her Privates We (1986) 20: Just fly over the line, take a peek at Fritz, and soon as a bit o’ shrapnel comes their way, fuck off ’ome jildy, toot sweet.
1939		A. Bessie Men in Battle 89: He ‘fucked off’ over the border, as the men put it.
1945		in T. Shibutani Derelicts of Company K (1978) 275: What’s the use of being on the ball, if you’re restricted anyway? May as well fuck off.
1964		H.S. Thompson letter 19 Aug. in Proud Highway (1997) 463: They told me to straighten up or fuck off.
1973		Sun. Times Mag. 30 Sept. 38: I used to have a whole load of women before I went inside, but they all f---ed off.
1980		T. Lewis GBH 117: ‘They’ve fucked off,’ I said. ‘That’s what. They’ve fucked off’.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] He seems to have satisfied himself that I’m all right and he fucks off.
1996		P. Temple Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] By the way, Helen’s fucked off.
1999		Observer Rev. 29 Aug. 9: There’s this guy, big fucker [...] twats me, fucks off.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 3: The borman [...] fucks off down the other end of the bor.
2010		K. Richards Life 221: Howling that everyone had left him, fucked off and left him.
2012		J. Fagan Panopticon (2013) 233: ‘I’m gonnae have a whitey,’ he said and fucked off up to the toilet to be sick.
2016		Rolling Stone 14 Oct. 🌐 This is Wisconsin, after all. You can tell immigrants to fuck off, but you can't say the p-word the day before church.
2021		P Howard Braywatch 206: I pick up my bag of jerseys and out the door I fock.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 344: ‘The past can fuck-off-thataways now for all I care’.

2. (orig. US, also f.o.) to waste time, to idle, to avoid one’s duties; thus fucking off n., wasting time, acting lazily.

1944		O. Ferguson ‘Vocab. for Lakes, [etc.]’ AS XIX:2 108: You would say of a man who has absented himself at the approach of some unpleasant job of work, ‘Oh, he fucked off.’.
1965		D. Pearce Cool Hand Luke (1967) 174: Git back to work. Ah ain’t gonna put up with your fuckin’ off no more.
1977		J. Sayles Union Dues (1978) 57: You keep an eye on him for me. You let me know he stots fuckin off, right?
1982		S. King Different Seasons (1995) 478: He’d been fucking off for the entire first seven years of his public education.
1992		R. Price Clockers 551: You say ‘free’ like [...] alls I do when I’m not here is fuck off or something.
2016		V. McDermid Out of Bounds (2017) 60: ‘You fuck off out of her life and we’ll fuck off out of yours’.

3. a synon. for go to hell! under hell n.

1940		P. Larkin letter 20 Dec. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 6: Poetry is nobody’s business except the poet’s & everybody else can fuck off (with a peculiar galloping motion.).
1978		R. Daley Prince of the City 35: Now a third detective was demanding money too. ‘I’d tell him to fuck off,’ Coco said.
1997		(con. 1950s) D. Farson Never a Normal Man 127: ‘You two can fuck off,’ she told them.

4. (US black) to waste, to squander.

1967		M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 9: The big yard’s a cold place to fuck off your life.
1972		Milner & Milner Black Players 216: It is easier for a dude to get rich without a car than it is to get rich with the car (if he don’t fuck off all the money).
2005		B. Coleman Rakim Told Me 151: ‘We got $40,000, bought an SP-12 [drum machine] [...] and fucked off some of the money’.
2019		N. Walker Cherry 39: I was fucking off school pretty bad and I tried to balance that out by getting a job helping make the pizzas at Gerasene’s.

5. to disregard, to brush aside, to put off.

1962		G. Ross Last Campaign 431: They been trying to retire him for months [...] but he keeps fucking them off and turning down his retirement.
1985		T.R. Houser Central Sl. 23: fucked-it-off To let a debt or other obligation lapse [...] ‘I owed the boy money but I just fucked-it-off.’.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 438: Sulking on the train because me bird’d fucked me off.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 23: We fucked him off of course but he’s gone down one of those law centres.

6. to miss out on something through one’s own or another’s ineptitude.

1973		E. Bunker No Beast So Fierce 164: We fucked off a score because you weren’t here.
2013		T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] Then I realized I’d just fucked-off my ride back.

7. to expel, to reject.

1988		R. Doyle Commitments 15: He told me he got fucked ou’ o’ the folk mass choir – D’yis know why? For playin’ The Chicken Song on the organ.
2007		S. Low Boys From Baghdad 55: No one moved—they were all staying. Mind you, if I could have had my way, quite a few of them would have been unceremoniously fucked off .

8. to stop.

1991

R. Doyle Van (1998) 364: ‘Ah, fuck off complainin,’ said Pat.

9. to annoy.

1995		N. Hornby High Fidelity 297: ‘I’m glad you’re back to sort him out.’ [...] This really fucks me off.
2000		Guardian G2 14 Feb. 4: It was a very small thing but it fucked me off so much.
2008		A. Wheatle Dirty South 3: It always fucks me off when these brothers don’t wanna spill the shit about him.