What does "years off" mean in a technological background? For example, I have encountered a sentence:
"Scientists had thought that the technology was years off."
I don't quite get what the accurate meaning of the phrase "years off". Does that mean it has pushed the work through a breakthrough?
The usual expression is years away. The Oxford Dictionary gives this example use
Then there are areas with great potential for the future such as genetics but that potential is years away.
It means that the technology won't be available for a long time.
This does mean the same as years off in the same context
Scientists had thought that the technology was years off.
but years off can mean something different from a time in the future
The archaeologist's estimate of the ruin's age was years off.
I can't a dictionary reference for these uses of off.
