ALOOF

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does aloof mean? 

• ALOOF (adjective)
  The adjective ALOOF has 1 sense:

1. remote in manner

  Familiarity information: ALOOF used as an adjective is very rare.

• ALOOF (adverb)
  The adverb ALOOF has 1 sense:

1. in an aloof manner

  Familiarity information: ALOOF used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ALOOF (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Remote in manner

Synonyms:

aloof; distant; upstage

Context example:

he was upstage with strangers

Similar:

reserved (marked by self-restraint and reticence)

Derivation:

aloofness (a disposition to be distant and unsympathetic in manner)

• ALOOF (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

In an aloof manner

Context example:

the local gentry and professional classes had held aloof for the school had accepted their sons readily enough

Pertainym:

aloof (remote in manner)

 Context examples 

I have taken it, and am waiting for sleep, which still keeps aloof.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

His whole life he had kept aloof from his kind, and he still desired to keep aloof.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The other mansions belonged to prosaic and respectable people who live far aloof from romance.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“They still hold aloof,” cried Hawtayne.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Come, let me see the list of pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia's folly.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Jo stood aloof, meanwhile, trying to harden her heart against him, and succeeding only in primming up her face into an expression of entire disapprobation.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

We crossed the road, and were pressing on towards her, when it occurred to me that she might be more disposed to feel a woman's interest in the lost girl, if we spoke to her in a quieter place, aloof from the crowd, and where we should be less observed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And yet how aloof!

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It might happen that, should he amass riches by some happy fortune of war, this feud might hold the two families aloof.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)