bring off

English

Verb

bring off (third-person singular simple present brings off, present participle bringing off, simple past and past participle brought off)

1. To succeed in doing something considered to be very difficult.

   I don't know how, but he managed to bring off the Acme Foods deal.

2. To bring to orgasm.
   • 1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter XIV, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Germany?]: Privately printed, →OCLC:

     And when I'd come and really finished, then she'd start on her own account, and I had to stop inside her till she brought herself off, wriggling and shouting, she'd clutch clutch with herself down there, an' then she'd come off, fair in ecstasy

   • 2002, William P. Case, South Caicos Tailwind:

     She brought him off with her mouth, while gently tickling his balls, and got herself off with her fingers while she did him.

3. (archaic) To rescue; to liberate.
   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene vi], line 25:

     I'll be ta'en too, Or bring him off.

4. To bring away from; to bring by boat from a ship, a wreck, the shore, etc.
5. (transitive, slang) To steal.
6. (obsolete) To prove; to demonstrate; to show clearly.

References

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “bring off”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.