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Glite Dictionary
to bounce off

to bounce off

70 3.4
To hit a surface and move away from it
  • phrasal verb
  • /baʊns ɔf/
: rebotar en
  • The children watched as the ball bounced off the wall and rolled back towards them.
  • a ball bounced off
  • bounced off the edge

I like to use diffuse light where I'm bouncing light off white walls and ceilings.

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Examples

  • I can make this harder by bouncing off of the ground, for instance.

  • The basketball hit the rim and bounced off unexpectedly.

  • You could bounce a quarter off that thing.

    A Journal for Jordan (2021)

  • As you can see, it bounces off and comes back.

  • And it seemed to be almost bouncing off an invisible object.

  • Maybe those little balls are bouncing off each other and creating that pattern.

  • The phone slipped out of my left hand and bounced off the floor.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • One fell through and bounced simply off the brick floor into the garden.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • When a sound wave encounters an object, the wave bounces off the object and back to the SONAR device.

    Academic text (2013)

  • The radiation bouncing off this towering glass structure was melting cars.

Synonyms

to bounce
vsto bounce off
391 1.3

To move quickly away from a surface after hitting it, moving up and down in a springy way

is limited to springing away from a surface, not general lively movement
to ricochet
vsto bounce off
24 7.7

To bounce off a surface at an angle after hitting it

is a general springing away from a surface rather than angled deflection
to rebound
vsto bounce off
4 2.9

To spring back after hitting something

is the same general return movement after colliding with a surface
to carom
vsto bounce off
  • US
2 9.5

To bounce off something and move away at an angle

is broader springing away not restricted to angled motion
to bound
vsto bounce off
1 4.4

To hit a surface and bounce away

is similar but often implies a quicker, stronger springing motion

Antonyms

to stick
48 3.4

To become fixed in one position and be hard to move

to adhere
13 5.2

To stick firmly to a surface such as glass or plastic

How Bouncy

ricochet
9 7.9
to bounce off
70 3.4
to rebound
4 2.9

Surface Forms

bounce off infinitive
bounced off past
bounced off past participle
bouncing off present participle
bounces off third person singular

Morphology

bounce + off

The meaning 'to rebound or ricochet away from a surface' is directly and transparently derivable from combining 'bounce' (to rebound) with the directional particle 'off' (away from a surface). This motion verb + particle pattern is a standard, compositional construction in English and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Bounce off shows a simple picture: imagine a ball that bounces when it hits a wall and then flies off in another direction. That's why bounce off means 'to rebound' from a surface.