Offensive

How to spell offensive

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce offensive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does offensive mean?

1. adjectiveCausing someone to feel hurt, angry, or insulted.
2. adjectiveRelating to attack or aggressive action rather than defence.
3. nounA large-scale attack or sustained campaign of aggressive action.

Offensive in a sentence

• adjective

  The manager removed the offensive comment from the staff forum.

• adjective

  The coach drilled the team on their offensive play before the final.

• noun

  The generals launched a major offensive at dawn.

• adjective

  Several viewers found the advert deeply offensive and complained.

• adjective

  The army adopted an offensive posture along the border.

• noun

  The charity began a public relations offensive to raise awareness.

Where does offensive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb offendere, which literally meant 'to strike against' or 'to knock into', built from ob 'against' and the verb fendere 'to strike or hit'. In Roman use it slid easily from a physical blow into the figurative sense of giving displeasure or causing hurt, and the related noun offensa meant a wrong or an injury. English took the adjective in through Old French offensif in the late 1400s, carrying both the warlike idea of an attacking move and the social idea of something that wounds feelings. The same fendere root still hides inside its mirror-image word 'defensive', where de- 'away from' replaces ob- 'against', so the two terms are quite literally about striking toward versus warding off. The spelling trap is the single f after the prefix and the c-sounding s: it is written -ens-, not -enc-, because the Latin source had fens, not fenc.

How the word is built

• of- (from ob-: against)
• fens (from fendere: to strike)
• -ive (adjective/noun suffix)