OFFENSIVE • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Offensive

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/əfˈɛnsɪv/ Listen

adjective

Offensive adj.

Giving offense; causing displeasure or resentment; displeasing; annoying; as, offensive words.

Giving pain or unpleasant sensations; disagreeable; revolting; noxious; as, an offensive smell; offensive sounds. "Offensive to the stomach."

Making the first attack; assailant; aggressive; hence, used in attacking; opposed to defensive; as, an offensive war; offensive weapons.

League offensive and defensive, a leaque that requires all the parties to it to make war together against any foe, and to defend one another if attacked.

Synonyms: Displeasing; disagreeable; distasteful; obnoxious; abhorrent; disgusting; impertinent; rude; saucy; reproachful; opprobrious; insulting; insolent; abusive; scurrilous; assailant; attacking; invading.

noun

Offensive n. The state or posture of one who offends or makes attack; aggressive attitude; the act of the attacking party; opposed to defensive.

To take the offensive, To act on the offensive, To go on the offensive, to be the attacking party; to initiate hostilities.

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Etymology of 'Offensive'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Offensive" Quotes from Famous Books

... Thus, one had only to smile humorlessly, permit one's eyes to grow enigmatic, and think of a proper epigram. He recalled for an instant the two women who had succumbed to his technique since he had left America. They blurred in his memory and became offensive. Yet Matty had been of service and perhaps her moodiness was caused by a suppressed affection. As an amorous prospect she was not without interest. As a reality, however, she would obviously become a bore. In any case there was nothing to hinder polite ...

— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... Heracleopolis, on account of its antipathy to serpents and because it was supposed to destroy the crocodile, a feat with AElian and others have overloaded with fable. It has also a distinct antipathy to cats. The ichneumon as a pet becomes too tame and will not leave its master: when enraged it emits an offensive stench. I brought home for the Zoological Gardens a Central African specimen prettily barred. Burckhardt (Prov. 455) quotes ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... said I, "and even where a vault has been shamefully neglected, and is full of offensive matter, it can be cleaned out without difficulty and without smell. I have cleaned out a large vault in an hour. We were drawing manure from the yards with three teams and piling it in the field. ...

— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris

... Nadowessioux, a Canadian-French corruption of Nadowe-ssi-wag ("the snake-like ones" or "enemies"), a term rooted in the Algonquian nadowe ("a snake"); and some writers have applied the designation to different portions of the stock, while others have rejected it because of the offensive implication or for other reasons. So long ago as 1836, however, Gallatin employed the term "Sioux" to designate collectively "the nations which speak the Sioux language,"(2) and used an alternative term to designate the subordinate confederacy—i.e., he used the term in a systematic ...

— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... windows. Jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class, ballast-heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged children, and the raff and refuse of the river, he makes his way with difficulty along, assailed by offensive sights and smells from the narrow alleys which branch off on the right and left, and deafened by the clash of ponderous waggons that bear great piles of merchandise from the stacks of warehouses that rise from every corner. Arriving, at length, in streets ...

— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

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