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ON AND OFF
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adverb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Not regularly
Example:
they phone each other off and on
Synonyms:
off and on; on and off
Classified under:
Context examples:
He doen't know wheer he's going; he doen't know—what's afore him; he's bound upon a voyage that'll last, on and off, all the rest of his days, take my wured for 't, unless he finds what he's a seeking of.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
He knew not what could be the use of those several clefts and divisions in my feet behind; that these were too soft to bear the hardness and sharpness of stones, without a covering made from the skin of some other brute; that my whole body wanted a fence against heat and cold, which I was forced to put on and off every day, with tediousness and trouble: and lastly, that he observed every animal in this country naturally to abhor the Yahoos, whom the weaker avoided, and the stronger drove from them.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
It's a backwards analogy, but we are actually using light to turn on and off a biological switch, said Emmanuel Tzanakakis, professor of chemical and biological engineering at the School of Engineering at Tufts University and corresponding author of the study.
(Researchers Develop Insulin-Producing Cells Activated by Light for Diabetes, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
The study of how age and exposure to environmental factors, such as diet, exercise, drugs, and chemicals, may cause changes in the way genes are switched on and off without changing the actual DNA sequence.
(Epigenetics, NCI Dictionary)
For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The line-of-battle ships themselves, tacking on and off outside Brest, could earn nothing save honour; but the frigates in attendance made prizes of many coasters, and these, as is the rule of the service, were counted as belonging to the fleet, and their produce divided into head-money.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
