Offseason

How to spell offseason

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce offseason

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does offseason mean?

1. nounThe part of the year when a particular sport, business, or tourist activity is least active.
2. adjectiveRelating to or occurring during the least active part of the year.

Offseason in a sentence

• noun

  The resort drops its room rates during the offseason.

• adjective

  The hotel offers an offseason discount on weekday bookings.

• noun

  The team signed two new players over the offseason.

• adjective

  The squad followed an offseason training programme to stay fit.

Where does offseason come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern compound built from two older English pieces, the adverb-particle 'off' and the noun 'season'. The word 'off' descends from the Old English 'of', a native Germanic word meaning 'away' or 'from', which is why it signals 'not in operation' here. 'Season' travelled a longer road: it came into English in the 1200s through Old French 'seson', which itself goes back to the Latin 'satio', literally 'a sowing' of seed, so the original idea was the proper time of year for planting. Over the centuries 'season' broadened from farming time into any recurring stretch of activity, such as a sporting or tourist season. The fused form 'offseason' arose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, chiefly in sport and business, to name the quiet stretch when the main activity pauses. The spelling trap is simply remembering it is written solid as one word, with the double 's' that meets where 'off' ends and 'season' begins.

How the word is built

• off- (away from, not in)
• season (a recurring active period, from Latin satio 'a sowing')