spin-off

Noun

spin-off (plural spin-offs)

1. An offshoot.
   • We are about to broach the fraught saga of the Circle Line, but there is another Metropolitan spin-off that comes first, one that has always appealed to me by the baleful beauty of its name: the City Widened Lines or 'The Widened Lines' for short.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, pages 51–52
2. An incidental benefit or unexpected pay-off.
   • Space research often provides a spin-off for everyday technology.
3. A by-product.
4. A fictional work where the protagonist was introduced in a preceding work or at least shares the same setting, often in a different aspect.
   • "Frasier" was a spin-off from the sitcom "Cheers".
   • The Harry Potter spin-off prequel series Fantastic Beasts has been “parked” by Warner Bros, according to its director David Yates.2023 October 27, “Fantastic Beasts: JK Rowling franchise has been ‘parked’, director says”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
5. The formation of a subsidiary company that continues the operations of part of the parent company; the company so formed.

   Synonyms:

   hive-off