come off

verb

came off; come off; coming off; comes off

intransitive verb

1

a

: to acquit oneself : fare

came off well in the contest

b

: appear, seem

2

: succeed

His plans to start a business never came off.

3

: happen, occur

4

US, informal

—used in phrases like where do you come off? to express anger or annoyance at what someone has said or done

Marie was bent over the table now, reading, her piping girlish voice hot with indignation. "Where does she come off, anyway?"

—T. Coraghessan Boyle

transitive verb

1

: to have recently completed or recovered from

coming off a good year

2

: to have recently stopped using (an illegal drug)

an addict who is coming off heroin

Synonyms of come off

• happen
• be
• come
• come to pass
• occur
• come down

Examples of come off in a Sentence

couldn't believe that the wedding would actually come off—they've been “just dating” for years

the attempted revival of the city's downtown never really came off, and even more stores eventually closed

Recent Examples on the Web

The veteran Ford was counted on entering camp to be the sixth man in the offensive line room, but plays like those have come far too often while eroding the team’s confidence in him coming off the bench. — Paul Dehner Jr, New York Times, 23 Aug. 2026

Now the headphones are coming off the production line with final tuning, app integration and feature implementation all in place. — Mark Sparrow, Forbes.com, 23 Aug. 2026

Álvarez came off the bench in the 67th minute of Atletico’s 2-2 draw against Villarreal at the Metropolitano stadium. — ABC News, 23 Aug. 2026

At the end of the day those new black sneakers had a white scuff mark that wouldn’t come off and the white part near the sole was less white. — Eric Thomas, Sun Sentinel, 23 Aug. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1590, in the meaning defined at intransitive sense 1a

Rhymes for come off

• cerenkov
• ashraf
• checkoff
• cutoff
• falloff
• handoff
• kickoff
• layoff
• liftoff
• markoff
• markov
• payoff