doff

[dof, dawf]

verb (used with object)

to remove or take off, as clothing.
to remove or tip (the hat), as in greeting.
to throw off; get rid of: Doff your stupid ideas and join our side!

Textiles.
1. to strip (carded fiber) from a carding machine.
2. to remove (full bobbins, material, etc.) from a textile machine.

noun

Textiles.
1. the act of removing bobbins, material, etc., and stripping fibers from a textile machine.
2. the material so doffed.

Origin of doff

1300–50; Middle English, contraction of do off; cf. don¹

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for doffing

shed, peel, undress, disrobe, strip, discard, shuck

Examples from the Web for doffing

Historical Examples of doffing

He bowed to her with a grave courtesy, doffing his hat and casting it upon a chair.
The Sea-Hawk
Raphael Sabatini
He rose as she drew nigh, and, doffing his hat, made shift to pass on.
The Tavern Knight
Rafael Sabatini
It was as though with the doffing of the motley she had discarded its recollections.
Under the Rose
Frederic Stewart Isham
"I offer me congratulations," he said, doffing his cap and bowing low.
Klondike Nuggets
E. S. Ellis
I could not, were my very life at stake, think of affronting them by not doffing my hat.
The Disowned, Complete
Edward Bulwer-Lytton

British Dictionary definitions for doffing

doff

verb (tr)

to take off or lift (one's hat) in salutation
to remove (clothing)

Derived Formsdoffer, noun

Word Origin for doff

Old English dōn of; see do 1, off; compare don 1

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for doffing

doff

mid-14c., contraction of do off, preserving the original sense of do as "put." At the time of Johnson's Dictionary [1755] the word was "obsolete, and rarely used except by rustics," but it was saved from extinction (along with don) by Sir Walter Scott. Related: Doffed; doffing.