Wiktionary
vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To separate off from the main body, to move off to one side; as in troop movements on a parade ground or an organized retreat, or columns in a procession. 2 (context transitive English) To remove (an outer layer or covering, such as clothing).
WordNet
v. peel off the outer layer of something
take off, as with some difficulty; "He peeled off his blood-soaked shirt"
leave a formation
come off in flakes or thin small pieces; "The paint in my house is peeling off" [syn: peel, flake off, flake]
peel off in scales; "dry skin desquamates" [syn: desquamate]
Usage examples of "peel off".
Hannibal and the elephant again trailed at the end of the train, and the Negro kept running back and forth across the street, to peel off as many as he could of the pasted-up circus posters to keep for future use.
She pulled at one of the curled corners, and a page of Don Quixote started to peel off.
He reached up to his forehead and clawed at the sigil there, as if trying to peel off his own skin.
I mean, we'd all received copies of his manifestoes--printed on this grey recycled paper that was like the sheets of fuzz that you peel off a clothes dryer's lint trap.
Using her stoutest knife, Liriel chipped and pried and tugged until she managed to peel off a section of the scales.
I could see them peel off from the first squad, swarm into the boat as the interdiction circle tightened.
He did not look at Ky directly, concentrating instead on taking the peel off a lime in one smooth, even curl.
Leaning against the jamb, he watched as she looked into the mirror over the sink and began to peel off the mud gunk.
In one hour there would be a kilometre's distance between us and with that kind of margin I could peel off at whatever loop-road I liked: Braunschweig Hildesheim, Hanover itself.
She reached for the paring knife and one of the tubers and started skinning the peel off of it, dropping the peel in a smooth spiral into the tub of water she'd just used and depositing the flesh of the root into the bowl the Stead-holder had left her.
As he tore the peel off that one, he said, 'I killed my mother, or Abigail - or something that looked like them.