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| "Where do you get off telling me to get off your foot" "I get off on being in the middle" "Would you all be quiet, I can't get the kids off"... |
Today's phrasal verb, Get Off, is a complex one. It has thirteen meanings(!):
| 1. To leave a bus, train, etc. to descend from or move off of something. (inseparable). We will get off the bus at Montgomery St. station and then take the subway across the bay. I got off the plane in Jeddah and immediately the humidity from the Red Sea hit me like a wave. Get off of the table, it's not for sitting on. 2. To leave: to set out from a place or position (intransitive verb. Inseparable). We have to get off at the crack of dawn tomorrow. 3. To be able to leave work: to be allowed to leave work, especially at the end of the working day ( transitive and intransitive verb. Inseparable). What time do you get off this afternoon? I just got off work. Let me take a shower and I'll meet you in a half hour at the cafe. | ||||
| 4. To help a baby or child sleep. (Separable/optional). I can't get the kids off to bed because of the noise from next door. 5. To send communication or package: to send a written communication or package (transitive verb. Separable/obligatory). I need to get these letters off tonight. I got three emails off before the meeting. | ||||
6. To have a lucky escape: to experience only minor consequences of a mistake, misguided action, or accident (intransitive verb) Considering what might have happened, I think you got off very lightly. He got off with a warning from the police to repair his license plate. | ||||
7. To gain acquittal: to be acquitted in a court of law, or successfully defend somebody in a court of law ( informal: transitive and intransitive verb. Separable/optional). A good lawyer could get him off with no trouble. This defensed lawyer has a high acquittal rate: his clients always seem to get off. He got off on a technicality and left the court a free man. | ||||
8. To manage to fire a gun (separable/optional). She got off a few shots before she was arrested. 9. To say or write something funny (Separable/optional) She got off some jokes at the start of her presentation. 10. Stop talking on the phone (Inseparable). Let me know when he gets off the phone. I need to make a call. 11. To be so bold: to be bold enough to say or do something informal, usually disapproving. intransitive verb) Where does he get off thinking he can speak to me that way? | ||||
12. To be aroused or excited, to enjoy: to experience excitement, physical arousal, or the effects of a drug (slang. intransitive verb ) He gets off on old movies. I get off on snow boarding | ||||
13. taboo term: a highly offensive term meaning to have an orgasm (taboo. intransitive verb ) Synonyms: leave, depart, exit, go, embark, quit, go away dismount, get down, descend, come down, climb off, disembark
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Something that common, everyday, ordinary item that does not stand out from all the rest. In other words, something or someone that is "run-of-the-mill" is probably not notable.
Jack: How was the movie? Jill: It was run of the mill
He is just a run of the mill baseball pitcher.
This pizza is simply run of the mill
Origin: this idiom is said to derive from early industrialism and is American in origin. The mill in question was a weaving/textile mill and the articles first called 'run of the mill' were clothes that were simply ordinary and functional, nothing more. An early citation of that comes from an advert by Cook, Taylor & Co. of Lowell, Massachusetts in The Lowell Daily Sun, December 1895:"Seconds and the run of the mill, but for all wearing purposes just the same as firsts at twice the price". However, my sense of the idiom had always been, before learning the above, that it referred to just the ordinary, everyday process of a flour mill going round and round.
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| a lovely old flour mill |
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