Idiom: "Off the Cuff"

The origin of the idiom "Off the Cuff" traces back to the year 1936 and it was first used in the United States. It comes from the image of an actor reading lines from the sleeve of a shirt, rather than memorizing them. "Off the Cuff" means to do something on the spur of the moment. If you speak "off the cuff", you say something without having prepared or thought about your words first. Not prepared in advance, spontaneous, informal E.g. "The actor hadn't rehearsed a speech, as she didn't think she'd win, so she had to come up with something off the cuff". "I hadn't prepared a speech, so I just said a few words off the cuff". "An off-the-cuff remark" (as an adverb). Thesaurus immediately, instantaneously, instantly, offhand, off the bat, thereupon, directly, at/in one fell swoop, forthwith, a stitch in time saves nine, in a flash, no sooner said than done, then and there, ad hoc, ad-lib, extemporaneous, extemporary, extempore, impromptu, improvisational, improvised, offhand, offhanded, snap, spur-of-the-moment, unconsidered, unplanned, unpremeditated, unprepared, unrehearsed, unstudied Antonyms considered, planned, premeditated, premeditative, prepared, rehearsed Near Antonyms deliberate, intended, intentional Related Words unscripted; automatic, impulsive, instinctive, involuntary, spontaneous; casual, cursive, informal, unauthorized; half-baked, half-cocked, ill-advised Cuff: when talking about shirts, a cuff is a fold or band at the end of a sleeve and, on trousers, mainly in US English, it's the turned-up fold at the bottom of a trouser leg. In medicine, a cuff is a part of a device for recording blood pressure. It is the inflatable wrap placed around the upper arm. Always in the plural, cuffs are handcuffs, a pair of metal rings that are locked around somebody's wrist, usually by the police. As a verb, to cuff means "to put handcuffs around somebody's wrist" or "to make a cuff on an item of clothing".