off-hand

1. 1.

   without preparation

   “I don't know the figures off-hand”

   Synonymsex tempore

Questions about off-hand

What does off-hand mean?

off-hand means "without preparation".

How many syllables are in off-hand?

off-hand has 2 syllables and divides as off--hand under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for off-hand?

Close synonyms include ex tempore. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is off-hand a common word?

off-hand is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.