- offense
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Analogous words: assault, *attack, onslaught, onset2 Offense, resentment, umbrage, pique, dudgeon, huff are comparable when they mean a person's emotional reaction to what he regards as a slight, an affront, an insult, or an indignity.Offense implies an often extreme state of displeasure or of wounded feelings{
he is so sensitive that he takes offense at any unintentional or seeming slight
}{this tiny breath of genuine criticism had given deep offense— Forster
}Resentment implies more indignation than offense, more prolonged dwelling upon what one regards as a personal injury or grievance, and, often, more ill will to the person who has offended{as long as I am free from all resentment ... I would be able to face the life with much more calm— Wilde
}{have no right to trifle with their lives merely to gratify an old man's resentment of skepticism— Anthony Boucher
}Umbrage, used chiefly in the phrase "to take umbrage," differs from offense in carrying a clearer implication of being slighted or unfairly ignored; the term therefore generally suggests ruffled pride, resentful suspicion of others' motives, or jealousy of those favored{he took such umbrage at Eliot —who had been delayed at his bank—arriving a few minutes late on the platform, that I doubt he ever forgave him— Osbert Sitwell
}Very often umbrage is not clearly distinguishable from offense{the instance of a Southern defender who took umbrage at our saying that the leader of the Confederacy was outstandingly dumb— N. Y. Herald Tribune Book Rev.
}Pique applies to the reaction of one who has taken offense or umbrage, but it distinctively suggests a petty cause and a transient mood and often connotes wounded vanity{when the wanton heroine chooses to . . . flirt with Sir Harry or the Captain, the hero, in a pique, goes off and makes love to somebody else— Thackeray
}{had not for... years allowed his young green jealousy to show itself in words or pique— Buck
}Dudgeon applies chiefly to a fit of angry resentment or indignation provoked by opposition to one's views or a refusal of one's request{left the recent meeting in high dudgeon when compulsory purchase powers were eventually granted— Ian MacLennan
}{sometimes the em-ployer . . . will in a dudgeon refuse to sit in the same room with the union representatives— Bromley
}Huff, like dudgeon, applies to a fit of anger, but it comes closer to pique in suggesting pettiness of cause and transitoriness; distinctively it implies petulance and a sulky refusal to have more to do with those who have offended{at the first hint that we were tired of waiting and that we should like the show to begin, he was off in a huff— Henry James
}{half of 'em will be disgusted, and go away in a huff— De Morgan
}Contrasted words: *pleasure, delight, joy: gratifying or gratification, rejoicing (see corresponding verbs at PLEASE)3 Offense, sin, vice, crime, scandal are comparable as general terms denoting a more or less serious or conspicuous infraction or transgression of law or custom.Offense is the term of widest application, being referable to a violation of any law, including the law of the state, the law of the church, natural law, moral law, or standards of propriety and taste set up (as by society or the arts). It is also applicable to any transgression regardless of its triviality or gravity or its voluntary or involuntary character, provided it injures or tends to injure the welfare or well-being or happiness of others{O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven; it hath the primal eldest curse upon't, a broth-er's murder— Shak.
}{had been a strike leader, which, though not a crime, was certainly an offense in New England in 1920— Stong
}{the greater the number of laws, the greater the number of offenses against them— Ellis
}Sin primarily applies to an offense against the moral law especially as laid down in the Ten Commandments and in laws derived from them. Theologically its essential character is disobedience of the divine will and willful opposition to the law of God; in somewhat wider use it implies a failure to live up to the moral ideals of one's time or environment or to the moral ideal one has set as the standard of one's own conduct{regarded stealing and lying as sins
}{the sin of sacrilege
}{nonobservance of the Sabbath was the sin most abhorred by the settlers of that region
}{sin, remember, is a twofold enormity. It is a base consent to the promptings of our corrupt nature . . . and it is also a turning away from the counsel of our higher nature— Joyce
}{it may not have been much of a culture, crude, bloodthirsty, harsh, and worst sin of all, different— Agnew
}Vice (see also FAULT 2), though frequently applied to any of the offenses that from the theological and religious points of view are called sins, often carries little direct suggestion of a violation of divine law; rather, it more uniformly imputes to such offenses a character suggestive of moral depravity, corruption, or degradation; also, the term less often applies to single acts or single transgressions than to habits and practices that debase the character of a person or group of persons{spare then the person, and expose the vice— Pope
}{treachery and cruelty, the most pernicious and most odious of all vices— Hume
}{opium smoking was, and still is, considered a gentleman's vice— Maurer & Vogel
}{our vices as well as our virtues have been imputed to bodily derangements till character has become identified with a chemical reaction— Cardozo
}Crime in its basic sense applies to an infraction of law, especially of common law or statute law, that is punishable by the state or by any power that constitutes itself as the guardian of such law; it is not a technical legal term, but it is often used in the courts and is sometimes defined in penal codes, usually as a general term applicable to any act or omission forbidden by law and punishable upon conviction. In such use the term comprehends many clearly distinguished types of offenses (as a misdemeanor, a felony, or an act of treason){the reason for excluding evidence obtained by violating the Constitution seems to me logically to lead to excluding evidence obtained by a crime of the officers of the law— Justice Holmes
}{offenses against marriage such as adultery, which is a crime punishable by death in Papua and only a sin in civilized society— Social Science Abstracts
}{human society may punish us for crimes; human monitors reprove us for vices; but God alone can charge upon us the sin, which He alone is able to forgive— James Martineau
}Crime and, less often, sin may be applied to offenses that are of exceedingly grave nature; in fact, this implication is often found in crime, even in its quasi-legal sense{the betrayal by a people of itself is the ultimate historical crime: the final and the most degrading suicide— MacLeish
}{I've not been guilty of anything more than an indiscretion .... I behaved foolishly, but that's not a crime— Mackenzie
}Scandal (see also DISGRACE) applies to an offense against a law that is also an offense in another sense of that word—that of an act, a condition, or a practice which offends the public conscience or which puts a stumbling block in the way of those who should obey the law or should be trained to obey it; unlike the words sin, vice, and crime, scandal carries no implication of probable or certain punishment or retribution but emphasizes the distressing effect it has on others or the discredit it attaches to religion, morals, or respectability{Catholics . . . could not appear in Protestant assemblies without causing scandal to the weaker brethren— Froude
}{scandal is an act or omission that is sinful . . . and that is for another an occasion of sin— Ferrell
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
