How to Use off-the-books in a Sentence

off-the-books

adjective
  • Some have found off-the-books jobs in construction and housekeeping.
    — Miriam Jordan, New York Times, 12 Feb. 2024
  • In the old versions, the players were simply labeled with fake names or numbers, unless the gamers found an off-the-books workaround.
    — Jesse Pound, CNBC, 20 July 2024
  • Three-quarters of Zimbabweans toil in the informal workforce, one of the highest rates of off-the-books work in the world.
    — Tawanda Karombo, The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Dec. 2024
  • Charges were dropped Tuesday against the one-time manager of a former off-the-books Gary strip club after the man died, filings show.
    — Meredith Colias-Pete, Chicago Tribune, 17 June 2025
  • Local politicians from all parties benefited from the jobs, housing and off-the-books payments that commonly flowed from it all.
    — Nimet Kirac, New York Times, 4 May 2023
  • Over the years, law enforcement officers have responded to dozens of calls to these casinos for crimes more violent than off-the-books gambling.
    — Josh Salman, Miami Herald, 11 July 2025
  • Her husband is still awaiting his work authorization and meanwhile looks for off-the-books jobs every morning with other day laborers.
    — Antonio Olivo, Washington Post, 12 Mar. 2024
  • Mike soon finds out that Roxanne is a spy with an off-the-books government organization called The Union.
    — Tim Lammers, Forbes, 16 Aug. 2024
  • In 1743, Keith was sent to Fleet Prison for his off-the-books activities.
    — Alexandra Cox, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Mar. 2025
  • While some people are finding off-the-books employment as waiters or tour guides, experts say tourism is failing to bring a substantial increase in higher wage jobs.
    — Gianni Cipriano, New York Times, 2 Jan. 2025
  • By combing through financial data, he's flagged a line item in the budget for an unofficial, off-the-books, really expensive task force.
    — Tanya Melendez, EW.com, 15 May 2023
  • Weisselberg pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges last year and testified against the company, which was convicted of doling out off-the-books perks to some of its top executives.
    — Jesse McKinley, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Apr. 2023
  • She’s recruited by a dodgy British officer (Joseph Fiennes), who also deals arms on the black market, for a number of off-the-books jobs.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 12 May 2023
  • An elite task force of investigators has its hands full when an off-the-books max-security prison sees a massive breach, leading to the escape of the most notorious convicts.
    — Natalie Oganesyan, Deadline, 21 Dec. 2024
  • To make some money in the meantime—and to eat anything apart from what the shelter offered—residents of the Hall pursued several off-the-books occupations.
    — Eric Lach, The New Yorker, 13 Oct. 2023
  • After some discussion about legalizing and regulating the largely off-the-books machines, Link asked Arroyo if the two of them could speak in private.
    — Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune, 12 June 2023
  • Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has his own personal, off-the-books hedge fund called the Setad, which is worth $95 billion.
    — Michael R. Pompeo, Foreign Affairs, 15 Oct. 2018
  • Arman recorded the calamity, which is why he’s being targeted by off-the-books Decision Tree mercenaries in his new home in Norfolk, Va.
    — Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times, 12 May 2023
  • Polk estimates that the majority of gamblers who don’t have other sources of income, such as sponsorships or social media channels, will either fail to turn a profit under the new rules or begin playing in more off-the-books games.
    — Ryan Ermey, CNBC, 21 Apr. 2026
  • Here, Elizabeth McGovern’s Helen recruits a guy named Guy (Nicholas Denton) for an off-the-books mission.
    — Savannah Salazar, Vulture, 24 Oct. 2025
  • But statistics fail to convey the humanity of yard sales—the caprice, whimsy, and high spirits, as well as the cunning, weirdness, and heartbreak, that charge and thicken the air when two people agree to perform an off-the-books monetary transaction.
    — Caity Weaver, The Atlantic, 12 June 2026
  • In the age of generative AI, the theft of huge troves of medical information might be even more dangerous, as our health records wind up in data sets that enable off-the-books innovation in exploiting our ails.
    — Steven Levy, WIRED, 12 Jan. 2024
  • Cervantes, who worked at the shop as an off-the-books art curator, never notified the coffee shop and was never authorized to teach lifeguarding classes there, according to Steve Boland, who owned the shop at the time but has since sold it.
    — Douglas MacMillan, Washington Post, 16 July 2023
  • Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the worry primarily concerned the use of such off-the-books ships to circumvent Western sanctions and generate revenue to fuel the Kremlin’s war machine.
    — Michael Schwirtz, New York Times, 28 Dec. 2024
  • Helen wants him for an off-the-books quest to find a possibly mythical object called the Seven Five Two, and an even more off-the-books quest to find answers about a formative childhood trauma involving the Talamasca.
    — Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 24 Oct. 2025
  • Subsequent media and congressional investigations alleged that Dunn had an off-the-books meeting with Biogen's head scientist two years prior, which kicked off an unusually close collaboration in the lead-up to the approval.
    — Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 28 Feb. 2023
  • Helen sends him on an off-the-books job to the London Mother House to use his mind-probing powers on Jasper (William Fichtner), a powerful vampire with a personal vendetta against the Talamasca.
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 25 Oct. 2025
  • In the 2021 film, Odenkirk (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul) stars as Hutch Mansell, a by-the-numbers working stiff who harbors a secret past as an off-the-books government assassin.
    — Tim Lammers, Forbes.com, 16 Aug. 2025
  • Jeff Shell, the former president of Paramount Skydance, has resolved litigation with a gambler who accused him of leaking confidential company information and who sought $150 million for off-the-books crisis PR work.
    — Gene Maddaus, Variety, 11 June 2026
  • After a home invasion that put his wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen) and kids Sammy (Paisley Cadorath) and Brady (Gage Monroe) in peril, Hutch snaps back to his old ways as an off-the-books government assassin and goes scorched earth on the bad guys.
    — Tim Lammers, Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'off-the-books.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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