Meaning & use
leave off
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Meanings
phrasetransitive or intransitiveinformal
To stop doing something, or to stop something from continuing.
Grammar: Can stand alone ("Let's leave off here") or take an object or -ing form: leave off work / leave off working.
Patterns
- leave off doing something
- leave off something
- leave off for today
Let's leave off for today and finish the report tomorrow.
He left off studying at nine and went for a run.
The rain finally left off around noon.
phrasetransitive
To not include something, especially when adding or serving it.
Grammar: The object usually comes between the verb and "off": leave the onions off.
Patterns
- leave something off
- leave something off something
Please leave the cheese off my sandwich.
Her name was left off the guest list by mistake.
phraseintransitiveBritishinformal
To stop talking about or doing something annoying.
Grammar: Often used as a command without an object: Leave off!
Patterns
- leave off
- leave off doing something
Leave off, you two — I'm trying to read.
He kept teasing his sister until their mother told him to leave off.
Word forms
| third person singular | leaves off |
|---|---|
| past tense | left off |
| past participle | left off |
| -ing form | leaving off |
Common combinations
- leave off work
- They left off work early on Friday.
- leave off the salt
- Leave off the salt if you're watching your blood pressure.
- pick up where you left off
- After lunch, we picked up where we had left off.
- leave off for the day
- It was getting dark, so we left off for the day.
Synonyms and how they differ
- stop
- More general and neutral; "leave off" often sounds more informal and suggests a pause rather than a final end.
- quit
- Suggests giving something up completely, while "leave off" usually means pausing or ending for now.
- omit
- A formal word for not including something, used in writing rather than speech.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: leave off or live off?
leave off vs live off
Live off means to depend on money or food for survival, for example live off savings; it is not the same as stopping.
Practice
Which sentence uses "leave off" correctly?
Choose one answer.
"Leave off" meaning "stop" is followed by an -ing form or a noun, so "leave off working" is correct. "Leave off to work" wrongly adds "to", and the other options break the word order.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “leave off”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.