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say it: AWF-hand
offhand is an adjective and adverb meaning "with little or no preparation or forethought". It carries 4 recorded senses.
with little or no preparation or forethought
“his ad-lib comments showed poor judgment”
“an extemporaneous piano recital”
“an extemporary lecture”
“an extempore skit”
“an impromptu speech”
“offhand excuses”
“trying to sound offhanded and reassuring”
“an off-the-cuff toast”
“a few unrehearsed comments”
without previous thought or preparation
“couldn't give the figures offhand”
“we decided offhand to go to Canada”
“she had made these remarks offhandedly”
in a casually inconsiderate manner
“replied offhand, his mind a million miles away”
“she threw him over offhandedly without even a Dear-John letter”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for offhand come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.