offcast

• off-cast

From Middle English ofcasten, equivalent to off- +‎ cast. Cognate with Danish afkaste (“to shed”), Swedish avkasta (“to crop, throw off, yield”).

The noun is possibly derived from Middle English ofcast (“the refuse of plants”).

offcast (third-person singular simple present offcasts, present participle offcasting, simple past and past participle offcast)

1. (transitive) to cast off; shed.
2. (transitive, theater, television) to remove from the cast of a production.
   • 1985, Tino Balio, The American film industry:

     The experiment to offcast Davis began in 1937 with That Certain Woman; "She's a lady," we are told.

   • 1997, Ann M. Sperber, Eric Lax, Bogart:

     [...] and Paramount was not inclined to offcast its stars, the story was dropped.

   • 2015, Emily Carman, Independent Stardom:

     White actresses were able to maintain a more multidimensional star persona than actresses of color, thanks in large part to their ability to off-cast themselves in challenging roles and control their off-screen image through publicity.

offcast (plural offcasts)

1. That which is rejected as useless.

• cast off, cast-off, castoff