offense
Americannoun
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offenses
plural
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a violation or breaking of a social or moral rule; transgression; sin.
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a transgression of the law; misdemeanor.
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a cause of transgression or wrong.
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something that offends or displeases.
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the act of offending or displeasing.
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the feeling of resentful displeasure caused.
to give offense.
- Synonyms:
- wrath, resentment, umbrage, indignation
- Antonyms:
- pleasure
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the act of attacking; attack or assault.
weapons of offense.
- Synonyms:
- aggression
- Antonyms:
- defense
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a person, army, etc., that is attacking.
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Sports.
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the players or team unit responsible for attacking or scoring in a game.
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the players possessing or controlling the ball, puck, etc., or the aspects or period of a game when this obtains.
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a pattern or style of scoring attack.
single-wing offense; fast-break offense.
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offensive effectiveness; ability to score.
a total breakdown in offense.
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Archaic. injury, harm, or hurt.
Synonym Usage
See crime.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of offense
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English offence, offense; in part from Middle French offens, from Latin offēnsus “collision, knock,” equivalent to offend(ere) ( see offend) + -tus suffix of verb action; in part from Middle French offense, ultimately from Latin offēnsa, feminine past participle of offendere
Explanation
The part of a team that tries to score points is called the offense. If you play forward on a soccer team, you are on offense. If you offend someone — that is you cause them to be upset because of your actions or words — then you may need to apologize for the offense. After all, you meant no offense when you said that disco was dead. How were you to know the guy still loved the '70s? In the eyes of the law, an offense is a crime.
Vocabulary lists containing offense
Set, Hut! Football Vocabulary
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Words Football Fans Can Master Easily
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Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address (1865)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A sold-out crowd of 5,000 was surprised when the Braves were down by 21 points at halftime and the offense looked deader than Elvis.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026
Ms. Dixon even tries to categorize the different types of artistic offense.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
The rest of the game would follow suit as the Sparks couldn’t contain the Dream’s offense.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
During his early days as an assistant at Barcelona, he took mortal offense to being known as “The Translator”—though one of his primary duties did involve repeating his English manager’s instructions in Spanish.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
White men comprised 78 percent of the arrests for this offense in 1990 when new mandatory minimums governing drunk driving were being adopted.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
Due to the gravity of the offenses, the location where they were perpetrated, and the fact that he was already out on two separate bonds, Poland initially set his new bond at $1.25 million.
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026
Mangione’s lawyers argue that charged offenses all related to the same act.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
But experts cautioned against reading too much into year-over-year numbers that can fluctuate based on many factors — including how authorities classify and count certain offenses.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2026
Most appeals to the emergency docket are the type of requests that were traditionally handled there: procedural requests, such as extending the time to file, and requests to stay execution for capital offenses.
From Salon ● Jul. 3, 2026
The Adams team, then, was charging Jefferson with two serious offenses against the unwritten code of political honor purportedly binding on the leadership class of the revolutionary generation.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
