How to use inoffensive in a sentence

10 example sentences · adjective

Inoffensive means not offensive. Example: “It was, on the surface, an inoffensive act: The students raised the American flag in front of the school.”

Examples of inoffensive by meaning

adjectiveNot offensive.

an inoffensive joke
It was, on the surface, an inoffensive act: The students raised the American flag in front of the school.1971, Lyndon Johnson, The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 180

adjectiveHarmless.

an inoffensive plant

More sentences with inoffensive

A harmless dog is killed, an inoffensive man's reason, if not his life, endangered.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London. From the entry call to account
It is green on the Tube map, an inoffensive colour.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 60. From the entry district
You’re just a poor, inoffensive Mumma’s boy.”1959, Dorothy Hewett, chapter 4, in Bobbin Up (Virago Modern Classics; 172), London: Virago Press, →ISBN, pages 29 and 38. From the entry mumma's boy
To her surprise, a few of them were furnished like midclass hotel rooms, with plain industrial carpet covering the floor, standard-sized beds, and inoffensive decor.2011, Donna Ball, Keys to the Castle. From the entry midclass
Ceviche is inoffensive but not great, tackily served in a carved-out pineapple, and even more tackily served with those same smoky crab claws.2007, Robin S. Goldstein, Fearless Critic Houston Restaurant Guide: Brutally Honest Undercover Chefs and Food Writers Rate More Than 400…. From the entry tackily
It was a graceless and ungrateful act and, in view of Blowitz’s Orléanist sympathies, must have antagonized from the start that stalwart champion of the inoffensive Princes’ rights.1962, Frank Giles, “A reporter at work”, in A Prince of Journalists: The Life and Times of Henri Stefan Opper de Blowitz, London: Faber…. From the entry know which side of the bread is buttered
So might one disclose a tiny rill in the uplands of Thibet—and thousands of miles away the muddy yellow waters of the surging Whang Ho obliterate an inoffensive province.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London. From the entry thibet

Meaning of inoffensive

adjective Not offensive.
adjective Harmless.

Full definition of inoffensive

Questions about inoffensive in a sentence

How do you use inoffensive in a sentence?: Inoffensive is used as an adjective. For example: “It was, on the surface, an inoffensive act: The students raised the American flag in front of the school.”
What is a short sentence with inoffensive?: “an inoffensive joke”
What does inoffensive mean?: Inoffensive means not offensive.

Adapted from Wiktionary: inoffensive (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use inoffensive in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/inoffensive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.