Word.ws English Dictionary

off the books

off the books prepositional phrase: with regard to income, undeclared for taxes and social insurance purposes, etc.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (colloquial) With regard to income, undeclared for taxes and social insurance purposes, etc.
    • His company was fined for paying staff off the books.
    Antonyms:
    on the books

Antonyms of off the books

Forms of off the books

alternative formoff-the-books

Questions about off the books

What does off the books mean?
Off the books means with regard to income, undeclared for taxes and social insurance purposes, etc.
What part of speech is off the books?
Off the books is a prepositional phrase.

Words near off the books in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: off the books (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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Cite this entry: “off the books.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/off_the_books. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.