Word.ws English Dictionary

offension

offension noun: assault; attack, offensive; offense.

Noun

offension

  1. (obsolete) Assault; attack, offensive; offense.
    • … they nourish wicked adultery and much fornication, they fill the world with offensions and bastards, and give great occasion of murdering …c. 1517–1587, John Foxe, "The Primitive Church of Rome", reprinted in The Acts and Monuments … with a preliminary diss. by George Townsend (1841), page 84
    • Napoleon had possessed himself of those very points, which would serve him as a basis of offension against Prussia and Austria. Nicholas acted in his spirit, when he fortified those points by a chain of fortresses.a. 1955, Karl Marx (original author), Manuskripte über die polnische Frage: (1863–1864), Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG (2020), page 183

Origin of offension

From Old French [Term?], from Latin offensio (“an offense”).

Questions about offension

What does offension mean?
Offension means assault; attack, offensive; offense.
What part of speech is offension?
Offension is a noun.

Words near offension in the dictionary

  1. offenselessly
  2. offenselessness
  3. offensensitivity
  4. offenses
  5. offensible
  6. offension
  7. offensive
  8. offensive back
  9. offensive backs
  10. offensive foul
  11. offensive fouls

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: offension (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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