noises off pl (plural only)
- (theater) Sound effects produced offstage.
1934, Alfred Kenneth Boyd, The Technique of Play Production:A separate section is given to this subject because as a rule the importance of noises off is badly underestimated in the amateur theatre.
- (by extension) Something occurring on the margins or periphery of a given event, situation etc.
2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 515:The political situation after the Year V elections developed into a war of position between rival factions, with muffled insurrectionary noises off supplied by bellicose neo-Jacobins and sabre-rattling royalists.
2023 June 30, Marina Hyde, “The tide is coming in fast on Rishi Sunak – and it’s full of sewage”, in The Guardian[1]:Amazing, given the gravity of those, that noises-off to the main event continue to be bleatings by the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries […] who have now put five times more effort into greasing up to Boris Johnson than they ever did into public service.
