throw off

verb

threw off; thrown off; throwing off; throws off

transitive verb

1

a

: to free oneself from : get rid of

threw off his inhibitions

b

: to cast off often in a hurried or vigorous manner : abandon

threw off all restraint

c

: distract, divert

dogs thrown off by a false scent

2

: emit, give off

stacks throwing off plumes of smoke

3

: to produce in an offhand manner : execute with speed or facility

some little … tune that the composer had thrown off

—James Hilton

4

a

: to cause to depart from an expected or desired course

mistakes threw his calculations off a bit

b

: to cause to make a mistake : mislead

5

: earn, generate

an investment that throws off a sizable income

intransitive verb

1

: to begin hunting

2

: to make derogatory comments

Synonyms

• abstract
• call off
• detract
• distract
• divert

Examples of throw off in a Sentence

the sudden noise just threw me off completely, and I missed my shot

Recent Examples on the Web

Seemingly unimportant individuals are hunted, harassed, threatened, shot, thrown off balconies in the European Union or the United States. —Sarah A. Topol, New York Times, 20 Sep. 2024

The idea is that the yellow metal, which throws off no cash, is less attractive when even safe U.S. Treasurys are offering investors healthy yields. —Jesse Pound, CNBC, 18 Sep. 2024

Rohan Nadkarni Trying to throw off his back foot into the middle of the field, Jordan Love was picked off by Reed Blankenship — echoing a similar interception Jalen Hurts threw in the first quarter. —NBC News, 7 Sep. 2024

The technology needs to be trained on huge sets of voice samples to correctly understand the full range of human accents and speech patterns, and noisy environments can throw off AI speech recognition tools. —Clare Duffy, CNN, 31 July 2024

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1b

Kids Definition

throw off

verb

: to send out : emit

a sparkler throws off sparks