Word.ws English Dictionary

buying off

buying off is the present participle and gerund of buy off.

Meaning of buy off

Verb

buy off (third-person singular simple present buys off, present participle buying off, simple past and past participle bought off)

  1. (transitive) To pay off, convince to refrain etc. by corrupt payment or other service.
    • Then, Sir, as to Bribery and Corruption at Elections ... every Elector has a natural Byass to vote for one Man rather than another, and every Elector will vote according to his natural Byass, if he is not bought off: whoever endeavours to buy him off, must certainly come up to his Price, and this...1742, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, The history and proceedings of the House of Commons from the Restoration to the present time, Volume 8, page 166
  2. (transitive) To gain release for (a person) from military service by payment of money.
    Synonyms:
    buy out

Questions about buying off

What is buying off the present participle and gerund of?
Buying off is the present participle and gerund of buy off.

Words near buying off in the dictionary

  1. buying guide
  2. buying guides
  3. buying in
  4. buying into
  5. buying it
  6. buying off
  7. buying off on
  8. buying out
  9. buying out from under
  10. buying over
  11. buying power

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: buying off (page history and authors); buy off (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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