doff
/dɒf
/verb [with object]
1Remove (an item of clothing).
1.1Take off or raise (one’s hat) as a greeting or token of respect: the manager doffed his hat to her...
- ‘Good afternoon, sir, nice to see you again,’ the liveried porter smiles and doffs his hat.
- There was also the whole etiquette of uncovering your head in the presence of your betters and men doffing their hats to ladies and so forth.
- Every man in the room duly doffed his hat, including the other photographers, much to the approval of the Royal couple and to the dismay of the bare-headed cameramen who were too busy with their hats to attend to their lens-caps.
Origin
Late Middle English: contraction of do off. Compare with don2.
To doff, ‘to remove an item of clothing, especially a hat’, is a contraction of do off. It has an exact parallel in don, ‘to put on’, which was originally do on. Both forms date from the late Middle Ages.
Rhymes
- red-tapist
- red-tapy
- red-tempered
- Red Terror
- redthroat
- red-throated
- red-throated diver
- red-throated loon
- red thrush
- red tide
- red tiger
- red-tipped
- red-tipped clearwing
- red-tipped pardalote
- red top
- red-topped
- red-topped sage
- Red Tory
- Red Toryism
- red tourmaline
- red trout
- red twig
- red-twigged
- red-twigged lime
- redub