Green’s Dictionary of Slang

off prep.

1. uninterested in, not wanting; also used as adv. with another prep. (e.g. off of/with).

[UK]Farquhar Love and a Bottle II i: By the Circumstances of my Body I shall soon be off or on with her.
[UK]Cibber Double Gallant I i: What! Then you are quite off of the Lady, I suppose, that you made an Acquaintance with in the Park last Week.
[UK]Music Hall & Theatre Rev 6 Apr. 121/1: But, thank goodness, you have the pluck to wear your own pretty dark hair. l am right off the common or garden serio-comic fair wig.
[Aus]Aus. Town and Country Jrnl 3 May 16/4: The most curious slang in the world is that of South Africa. [...] If he suspects that the play at the ‘gaff’ (theatre) is poor, he is ‘dead off’ going.
[Aus]E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 190: Feathers was the real sufferer. In his own language, he was ‘off ther Dolly’.
[US]H.C. Witwer Smile A Minute 300: I am pinched and fined $100 and Jeanne is off me for a week.
[US]F.S. Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald III (1960) 103: They’re rather off you at the club, you know; every man that doesn’t come through makes our crowd just so much weaker.
[US]H.C. Witwer Classics in Sl. 12: She’s off the boys for life, plays football and takes boxin’ lessons, instead of obligin’ at the piano and knittin’ doilies.
[US]W.R. Burnett Iron Man 8: I’m off of cards.
[UK]Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 123: Girlish banter be dashed. She’s right off me.
[UK]‘Josephine Tey’ Brat Farrar 207: ‘He’s distinctly off her. And he’s not awfully enamoured of you, if it comes to that’.
[Ire](con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 25: What’s the matter [...] off your grub or something?
[UK]K. Amis letter 23 Oct. in Leader (2000) 10: I hope you don’t think I’m off the idea of Eng. Lit.
S.J. Watson Before I Go to Sleep 259: ‘He said you were arguing, more than ever, and he didn’t know what to do. You were off sex, too’.

2. (drugs) not using an addictive drug, usu. narcotic; also of alcohol.

[UK]‘Bartimeus’ ‘Narrative of Commander W.D. Hornby’ in Awfully Big Adventure 120: He pointed to a tin of cigarettes with a wry face. ‘Dead off baccy,’ he said.
[US]D. Parker ‘The Last Tea’ in Penguin Dorothy Parker (1982) 182: I’m off the stuff for life.
[US]D. Maurer ‘Lang. of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in Lang. Und. (1981) 106/2: To Be off. Var. of To Be off drugs. To be temporarily freed from the habit.
[US]‘Hal Ellson’ Golden Spike 104: ‘You mean you’re off it?’ ‘Yeah, off it, I’m kicking it.’.
[Aus]‘Nino Culotta’ Gone Fishin’ 207: He’s gone orf the grog. Says she don’t like the smell of it on his breath.
[US]J. Mills Panic in Needle Park (1971) 15: When they are off heroin, addicts tend to be morose and restless. On heroin, when they are straight, they are pleasant, gentle, likeable.
[US]P. Maas Serpico 179: He had been an addict when he was turned into an informant, and was supposedly off heroin now.
[Scot]I. Welsh Trainspotting 170: ah wis the fackin cunt tryin tae git um oaf it!
[UK]Observer Mag. 11 June 12: I’m off everything now.
[UK]K. Richards Life 260: I would have probably written ‘Gimme Shelter’ whether i was on or off the stuff.

3. (orig. US) by means of, e.g. Sarah was grooving off Belle and Sebastian.

[US]B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 146: The whores got high off a good cocaine / and stood on the corners and boast.
[US]W. King ‘The Game’ in King Black Short Story Anthol. (1972) 309: We played it cool, since we were eating off him; never can tell how a stud takes to being laughed at.
[UK]K. Sampson Powder 436: She’s buzzin’ off all of this.