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offensive

Pronunciation: /əˈfɛnsɪv/

The English word “offensive” has 6 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Causing offense; arousing a visceral reaction of disgust, anger, hatred, sadness, or indignation.
  2. Socially disrespectful; insensitive.
  3. Relating to an offense or attack, as opposed to defensive.
  4. Having to do with play directed at scoring.

noun

  1. An attack.
  2. The posture of attacking or being able to attack.

Etymology

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 are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.