Word.ws English Dictionary

off the boil

off the boil prepositional phrase: having just stopped boiling.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (Of a heated liquid) having just stopped boiling.
  2. (colloquial) no longer continuing or active.
    • the deal has come off the boil
  3. (colloquial) No longer going smoothly or working well.
    • The railway industry is fully aware of how important off-peak travel now is, especially as commuter and business travel went off the boil when the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how easy it is to work from home.2024 August 21, “Comment: Seize the leisure travel initiative”, in RAIL, number 1016, page 3
  4. (colloquial) No longer playing exceptionally well.

Questions about off the boil

What does off the boil mean?
Off the boil means having just stopped boiling.
What part of speech is off the boil?
Off the boil is a prepositional phrase.

Words near off the boil in the dictionary

  1. off the back foot
  2. off the bat
  3. off the beam
  4. off the beaten path
  5. off the beaten track
  6. off the boil
  7. off the books
  8. off the chain
  9. off the chart
  10. off the charts
  11. off the clock

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: off the boil (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-off the boil.wav.

Cite this entry: “off the boil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/off_the_boil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.