strip off

Verb

strip off (third-person singular simple present strips off, present participle stripping off, simple past and past participle stripped off)

1. (transitive) To remove anything by stripping, e.g. items of clothing or paint from the side of a ship.
   • Strip off thy garments; Neptune's fury brave / With naked strength, and plunge into the wave.1713, Alexander Pope translation of Homer Odyssey read at Project Gutenberg
   • As soon as Julia returned with a constable, Timothy, who was on the point of exhaustion, prepared to give over to him gratefully. The newcomer turned out to be a powerful youngster, fully trained and eager to help, and he stripped off his tunic at once.1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
2. (Ireland, UK, idiomatic, intransitive) To remove all of one's clothes (or sometimes to remove all except underclothes, or figuratively).
   • Your trees of Pine Hill, which persevere in being green the year round, do not please so much as those which strip off in November,and put on their green and flowery robes in April.1847, John Sanderson, The American in Paris
   • A night when you strip off and sit down to gasp and pant for a breath of air; such a night is never experienced in Kansas.1871, Clinton Carter Hutchinson, Resources of Kansas: Fifteen Years Experience
3. (intransitive) To be removed by stripping.
   • The feathers strip off much more easily and cleanly while the bird is yet warm.1864, Robert Jennings, Sheep, Swine, and Poultry
   • On an old plant, this tends to strip off in long, tough, stringy lumps, a bit like short lengths of raffia.2005, Chris Baines, How To Make A Wildlife Garden