offense
noun
Simple meaning
A crime or sin.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhfehnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əˈfɛns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A feeling of anger caused by being offended
The state of being offended or displeased; anger; displeasure.
The act of offending.
An affront, injury, or insult.
A crime or sin.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A feeling of anger caused by being offended
Used this way, offense is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It sounds natural in ordinary conversation and in expressive writing alike.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use offense
- “The player committed an offense, leading to a penalty on the field.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The action of attacking an enemy.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A crime so serious that capital punishment is considered appropriate.
An act punishable by law.
Crimes created by statutes and not by common law.
A statutory offense that provides that it is a crime to knowingly cause another person to engage in an unwanted sexual act by force or threat.
Crimes created by statutes and not by common law.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.