1 [oftenpassive] to make sb feel upset because of sth you say or do that is rude or embarrassing:
[VN] They'll be offended if you don't go to their wedding. * Neil did not mean to offend anybody with his joke. * She managed to offend her boyfriend's parents as soon as she opened her mouth. * [V] A TV interviewer must be careful not to offend.
2 [VN] to seem unpleasant to sb:
The smell from the farm offended some people. * an ugly building that offends the eye
3 [V] (formal) to commit a crime or crimes:
[V] He started offending at the age of 16. * What is the best way to stop someone who has offended from repeating the offence?
4 [V] ~ (against sb/sth) (formal) to be against what people believe is morally right:
comments that offend against people's religious beliefs
offended adjective:
Alice looked rather offended.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for offend is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is offend a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, offend is tagged as verb.
Does offend appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — offend appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.