OFF AND ON

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does off and on mean? 

• OFF AND ON (adverb)
  The adverb OFF AND ON has 1 sense:

1. not regularly

  Familiarity information: OFF AND ON used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OFF AND ON (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not regularly

Synonyms:

off and on; on and off

Context example:

they phone each other off and on

 Context examples 

"I've thought about it off and on, while not wanting to think of it. But we've come to it now. It's the only thing to do."

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The atlas is the culmination of work from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) Consortium, established to catalog how genomic variation influences how genes are turned off and on.

(NIH completes atlas of human DNA differences that influence gene expression, National Institutes of Health)

They was ashore nigh on a week, and us standing off and on in the old WALRUS.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

By heating and cooling a magnetic material, one can turn its magnetism off and on.

(New Materials Developed by Scientists Able to Move in Response to Light, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Vanessa Hull, a doctoral student at MSU's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS), has been living off and on for seven years in the Wolong Nature Reserve, most recently tracking pandas that she has outfitted with GPS collars.

(Belly up to the bamboo buffet: Pandas vs. horses, NSF)

But look here, he went on, here's what I want to know, Barbecue: how long are we a-going to stand off and on like a blessed bumboat?

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Only wind in the trees which blew the wires and made the lights go off and on again as if the house had winked into the darkness.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)