Offset

How to spell offset

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce offset

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does offset mean?

1. verbTo counterbalance or compensate for something, so that the two effects cancel out.
2. nounAn amount or factor that counterbalances or compensates for something else.
3. nounA printing process in which ink is transferred from a plate to a rubber surface and then onto paper.

Offset in a sentence

• verb

  The higher fuel costs offset any savings from the new route.

• noun

  The bonus was a welcome offset to a stressful year at work.

• noun

  The brochures were produced by offset rather than digital printing.

• verb

  A small tax rebate can offset part of the rising rent.

• noun

  The company bought a carbon offset to balance its emissions.

• noun

  The workshop still runs an old offset press in the back room.

Where does offset come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound, built from two very old Germanic words: 'off', an old variant of 'of' meaning 'away' or 'against', and 'set', from Old English 'settan', meaning 'to place' or 'to put'. The earliest recorded uses appear in the 1500s, where an 'offset' was something set off to one side, including a shoot or branch growing out from a plant. From that physical sense of a thing placed at a distance came the idea of a counterbalancing quantity set against another, which gives us the modern accounting and general meanings. In the nineteenth century printers adopted the word for a method in which inked images are first transferred ('set off') onto a rubber blanket and then onto paper. Because the word is a transparent compound of 'off' plus 'set', the spelling is regular, with the only mild snag being whether to double the single 't' when adding endings.

How the word is built

• off (away, against)
• set (to place, put)