Word.ws English Dictionary

saw off

saw off verb: to cut off with a saw. Also the simple past of see off.

Verb

saw off (third-person singular simple present saws off, present participle sawing off, simple past sawed off, past participle sawed off or sawn off)

  1. To cut off with a saw.
    • A paraplegic St John's Wood man bled to death after trying to saw off his own legs.2011 June 23, Juliet Eysenck, “Paraplegic man died trying to saw off leg”, in Westminster Chronicle
  2. (slang) For the umpire to declare a batter out.
    • […] umpire's finger move slowly skywards. The skipper had been mercilessly sawn off.2010, Tony Lewis, Taking Fresh Guard
    • […] sawn off by the umpire and being sledged during his only half-century […]2019, Arup Saikia, Jimmy

Also used as

saw off is also the simple past of see off.

Forms of saw off

third-person singular presentsaws off
present participlesawing off
pastsawed off
past participlesawed off
past participlesawn off

Words formed from saw off

Questions about saw off

What does saw off mean?
Saw off means to cut off with a saw.
What part of speech is saw off?
Saw off is a verb.
What is the past tense of saw off?
The past tense of saw off is sawed off.

Words near saw off in the dictionary

  1. saw in
  2. saw into
  3. saw into a millstone
  4. saw log
  5. saw logs
  6. saw off
  7. saw off the branch one is sitting on
  8. saw one's way clear to
  9. saw one's way to
  10. saw oneself out
  11. saw out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: saw 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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