off base

Situated or happening outside the boundaries of a military base.

Prepositional phrase

  1. Situated or happening outside the boundaries of a military base.
    • A Virginia lawmaker wants to improve off-base living conditions for enlisted troops with families. - 2009 September 21, Bill Maze, “Bill would expand off-base housing options”, in Navy Times, archived from the original...

    Antonyms: on base

  2. Positioned somewhere between the bases, and hence vulnerable to being caught out.
    • The hippo heard us, and, like a baseball player caught off base, tried to get back to the river. - 1907, Richard Harding Davis, chapter 5, in The Congo and Coasts of Africa:

    Antonyms: on base

  3. Mistaken; misguided; somewhat wrong in opinion or judgment.
    • Near-synonyms: off-track, off target
    • But he's off-base in describing the city as having "record crime" until he took office. - 2007 November 27, Lori Robertson, “The Not-Quite Truth About NYC”, in Newsweek, archived from the original on 24 Jan 2025:

    Synonyms: off-track off target

  4. Incorrect or inappropriate; not properly executed, envisioned, or understood.
    • Near-synonyms: off-track, off target, off-kilter
    • Verne had been dead for 64 years by the time of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 and was thus spared the embarrassment of knowing . . . that part of the rocket would be named “Columbia,” not his own ludicrously off-base...
    • That partisan rhetoric may be heated, but it's not entirely off base. - 2010 June 24, Kate Pickert, “How Health Reform Will Impact Existing Plans”, in TIME, archived from the original on 25 Sep 2010:

    Synonyms: off-track off target off-kilter

Forms

off-base offbase