English

Verb

set off ‎(third-person singular simple present sets off, present participle setting off, simple past and past participle set off)

1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To leave; to begin a journey or trip.

   He set off in search of better opportunities.

2. (idiomatic, transitive) To begin; to cause; to initiate.

   I had no idea that one simple comment would set off such a huge argument.

3. (idiomatic, transitive) To cause to explode, let off.

   What a tragedy, that someone would set off a bomb in a crowded place.

4. (idiomatic, transitive) To make angry.

   Don't set him off or he won't shut up all day.

5. (idiomatic, transitive) To offset, to compensate for: to reduce the effect of, by having a contrary effect.

   My taxes did not increase because the amount of my raise was set off by my losses in the stock market.

   • 1881, Henry James, Jr., The Portrait of a Lady, Chapter XXXIX, in The Atlantic Monthly, Volume XLVIII, Number CCLXXXVI (August, 1881), Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, page 215:

     When a woman had made such a mistake, there was only one way to repair it,—to accept it. One folly was enough, especially it was to last for ever; a second one would not much set it off.

6. (printing, historical) To deface or soil the next sheet; said of the ink on a freshly printed sheet, when another sheet comes in contact with it before it has had time to dry.

Translations

See also

• offset
• put off
• throw off

Anagrams

• offset