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Glite Dictionary
to bounce off

to bounce off

33 3.4
To hit a surface and move away from it
  • phrasal verb
  • /baʊns ɔf/
translation icon : 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
386 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
25 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
19 2.9

To spring back after hitting something

is the same general return movement after colliding with a surface
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
to carom
vsto bounce off
  • US
1 9.5

To bounce off something and move away at an angle

is broader springing away not restricted to angled motion

Antonyms

to stick
752 3.4

To become fixed in one position and be hard to move

to adhere
17 5.2

To stick firmly to a surface such as glass or plastic

How Bouncy

ricochet
12 7.9
to bounce off
33 3.4
to rebound
19 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.