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What is the meaning of "build off of"? I Googled it, but can't find any definition!

I encountered it in the sentence in a technical book. The sentence is:

For the application we will build, the todos example is the closest fit, so we'll go ahead and build off of that example.

There is a link related to it I found by Google, But it didn't give the definition!

build off of vs build on

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@coleopterist: Nice bit of searching. I'm closevoting against the last of your three, because it's the same in the sense that off of is a sloppy replacement for the more standard on. – FumbleFingers Jan 29 at 22:16

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Build off of is wrong. It even sounds wrong. Build on is your man.

The reason you won't find a definition for build off of, is because it is meaningless.

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I'll upvote this because it seems more like the "correct answer" than the accepted one. But I still think the question is a dup that should be closed because it's the same as earlier “Based on” instead of “based off of”. – FumbleFingers Jan 29 at 22:18
Rather prescriptivist attitude. People use this "wrong" phrase all the time. – Andrew Lazarus Jan 31 at 3:48
People misuse apostrophes all the time too. – Facebook Answers Jan 31 at 8:11
up vote 3 down vote

A colloquial way of saying "Construct from a foundation", generally used in a figurative way. That is, if you were actually making a building, you probably wouldn't say "We're going to build off the foundation", because that's obvious. Here, the author is signifying that one particular example will be the root of the general solution.

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Build off of is a completely common tri-part phrasal verb. The reason that you have not found a definition is that we still struggling with these creatures in terms of defining them. In the States, we use about 300 of these as common terms. Build off of means just that "to develop from" or "elaborate on".

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