cast off
verb1
To discard or reject something.
- However, with the dainty volume my quondam friend sprang into fame. At the same time he cast off the chrysalis of a commonplace existence.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
- Mr. Christie, who as a presidential candidate has frequently suppressed his most pugilistic instincts, cast off any restraint and did what he does best: slice and slash.2016 February 7, Michael Barbaro, “Once Impervious, Marco Rubio Is Diminished by a Caustic Chris Christie”, in The New York Times:
3
Business, Knitting, Manufacturing, Textiles To finish the last row of knitted stitches and remove them securely from the needle.
4
Media, Printing, Publishing Historical To estimate the amount of space required by the type used for the given copy.
- To conserve type, copy was "cast off"; that is, type needed for the initial pages was estimated so that the pages need not be composed in the same sequence as the copy.2012, Christa Jansohn, Problems of Editing, page 102:
- Synonyms
- bind off