From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishfinish off phrasal verb1 finish something ↔ off to complete the last part of something that you are doing It’ll take me a couple of hours to finish this job off.2 finish something ↔ offFINISH/USE ALL OF something to use or eat all of something, so there is none left Who finished off the cake?3 to complete an event, performance, piece of work etc by doing one final thing with We’ll finish off with a track from Adam’s new album.finish something ↔ off She finished off her speech by thanking her sponsors.finish off/finish something ↔ off by doing something Finish off by cleaning the monitor and the keyboard.4 finish somebody/something ↔ offKILL to kill a person or animal when they are already weak or wounded5 finish somebody ↔ offKILL to take away all of someone’s strength, energy etc The walk up the hill really finished me off. → finish→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
finish off• I usually partially cook steaks in the microwave and then finish them off on the grill.• I came to work early this morning to finish off some urgent work for the boss.finish with• Each section of Mr Hall's fence had to be finished off with a strand of barbed wire running along the top.• The whole course is finished off with a word or two about the final stage of the recording process: the mix.• When building timber steps, these treads can be filled in with compacted soil, finishing off with bark chippings.• Choose a waterproof adhesive and finish off with grout in a contrasting colour.• The steak-and-chicken dinner finishes off with homemade peach cobbler and live entertainment.• Again, let the surface dry and finish off with two coats of polyurethane and wax as for the straight sanding process.• The Open in those days was one round Wednesday, one round Thursday and then finishing off with two rounds - Friday. 