Word.ws English Dictionary

writing off

writing off is the present participle and gerund of write off.

Meaning of write off

Verb

write off (third-person singular simple present writes off, present participle writing off, simple past wrote off, past participle written off)

  1. (transitive) To reduce the book value of (an asset) to zero.
  2. (transitive) To record (an expenditure) as an expense.
  3. (transitive) To remove a portion of a debt or an amount of an account owed, counting it as a loss (as a gesture of goodwill for example).
  4. To record a notional expense such as amortization or depreciation.
  5. (transitive) To treat as a write-off, a total loss, especially something damaged beyond economic repair.
    • The '800' received substantial collision damage, while the High Speed Train power car was written off.2020 May 20, “Fleet News: Collision-damaged '800' at Wolverton”, in Rail, page 25
  6. (figuratively, transitive) To assign a low value to (somebody or something).
    • When Katya was injured, he wrote off the team's chances in the finals.

Questions about writing off

What is writing off the present participle and gerund of?
Writing off is the present participle and gerund of write off.

Words near writing off in the dictionary

  1. writing itself
  2. writing lark
  3. writing larks
  4. writing master
  5. writing masters
  6. writing off
  7. writing on the wall
  8. writing one's own ticket
  9. writing out
  10. writing over
  11. writing pad

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: writing off (page history and authors); write 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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Cite this entry: “writing off.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/writing_off. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.