offensive.
Causing offense; arousing a visceral reaction of disgust, anger, hatred, sadness, or indignation.
Meaning & usage
Causing offense; arousing a visceral reaction of disgust, anger, hatred, sadness, or indignation.
Some people find pornography offensive.
An offensive smell.
Causing offense; arousing a visceral reaction of disgust, anger, hatred, sadness, or indignation. Socially disrespectful; insensitive.
Relating to an offense or attack, as opposed to defensive.
The army's offensive capabilities. An offensive weapon.
Having to do with play directed at scoring.
The offensive coordinator is responsible for ordering all rushing plays.
Where this word comes from
From Middle French offensif, from offendre + -if by analogy with défensif. Offendre is from Latin offendere (“to offend”); see offend.
An attack.
The Marines today launched a major offensive.
The posture of attacking or being able to attack.
He took the offensive in the press, accusing his opponent of corruption.
Where this word comes from
From Middle French offensif, from offendre + -if by analogy with défensif. Offendre is from Latin offendere (“to offend”); see offend.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.