piss off

Formspisses off, pissing off, pissed off

1. 1
   annoyphrasal verbvulgarcolloquialidiomatictransitive

   To annoy someone or make them angry.

   Nothing pisses her off faster than being interrupted mid-sentence.

   The surprise baggage fee managed to piss off nearly every passenger at the gate.

   Similarannoy, irritate, bother, bug, irk

   Oppositeplease, delight

   Note

   The person being annoyed goes in the middle when it is a pronoun (it pisses me off, not it pisses off me), while a noun object can sit inside or after: it pisses people off, it pissed off the whole office. Tick off and tee off say the same thing without the crude word, so they are the safer choice at work or around children.

2. 2
   go awayinterjectionvulgarcolloquialidiomaticCommonwealth

   Used as a coarse command telling someone to go away.

   Oh, piss off. I've been in this queue for forty minutes.

   When the reporter knocked a third time, a voice behind the door yelled, "Piss off!"

   Similarscram, shoo, begone, skedaddle, git

   Note

   It works as a complete dismissal by itself, or it opens the sentence with pal or a name tacked on: Piss off, pal! It shares the coarse Commonwealth register of the verb meaning "leave" but never changes for tense. Get lost sends the same message without the swearing, while bugger off and fuck off are no politer.

3. 3
   leavephrasal verbvulgarcolloquialidiomaticCommonwealthintransitive

   To leave a place, or to go away from someone.

   Once the rain started, most of the crowd pissed off to the pub.

   The builders always seem to piss off at lunchtime and never come back.

   Similarleave, go (entry), depart, exit, split

   Oppositestay, arrive

   Note

   Commonwealth speakers use it for leaving, and it stays coarse even when nobody is being told to go; whatever piss off means, it carries the same vulgar edge. It often runs straight into a second verb: pissed off and left us, piss off and leave us alone. Mind the past tense: he pissed off means he left, but he was pissed off means he was angry, the "annoy" meaning in the passive.

4. 4
   annoyancenoun · piss-offcountable or uncountable

   Alternative spelling of pissoff.

   Having to reset every work password each month is a total piss-off.

   Her new roommate turned out to be a piss-off who never washed a single dish.

   Note

   The hyphen is what turns the verb into a noun. A piss-off is the annoying thing itself, whether a person, a chore or a whole situation, while the open piss off is the verb meaning "annoy" that does the annoying. It takes a, makes the plural piss-offs, and keeps the vulgar edge of the whole phrase.

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