offtake

English

Etymology

From Middle English oftaken, equivalent to off- +‎ take.

Verb

offtake (third-person singular simple present offtakes, present participle offtaking, simple past offtook, past participle offtaken)

1. (transitive) To take off; take away, remove.
   • 1892, Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem, page 38:

     Of brothers and bairns, where the brightest of earth-joys
     She had hitherto had: all the henchmen of Finn
     War had offtaken, save a handful remaining, […]

   • 1917, Proceedings - West Pakistan Engineering Congress, volume 5, page 5:

     In this case also we are not informed what the range of water depths was; but, since all distributaries offtaking from this sixty-three miles length of canal were closed during the experiment, and since the capacity of the canal at the lower end was not more than half the capacity at its upper end, we know at least that the water stream must have been very shallow at the upper end of the length of canal under experiment.

   • 1922, Industrial India, volume 2, page 119:

     This canal offtook from the River Jumna, near its exit from the Sivalik Hills and flowed a distance of about 200 miles to the Fort of Hansi and the town of Hissar, on the borders of the Rajputana Desert.

2. (finance, transitive) To take out or remove commodities from a market, usually through purchasing them.
   • 1973, Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy:

     Obviously, it would be desirable for the parties to the interim offtake agreement to offtake their physical volumes in proportion to their dividend participation.

Derived terms

• offtaker

Noun

offtake (countable and uncountable, plural offtakes)

1. A point or channel of drainage or off-flow; offlet.
2. (mining) The removal of oil (or an industrial chemical) from a storage facility.
3. An act of taking off; specifically, the taking away or purchase of goods.
4. Something taken off; a deduction.

Anagrams

• take off, take-off, takeoff