offensive#

offensive adj

1 attacking, aggressive (see under ATTACK n)

Analogous words: invasive, incursive (see corresponding nouns at INVASION): assaulting, assailing, attacking, bombarding, storming (see ATTACK vb)

2 Offensive, loathsome, repulsive, repugnant, revolting are comparable when they mean utterly distasteful or repellent.

Something offensive subjects one to painful or highly disagreeable sensations. Sometimes the term implies injured feelings as a result of an affront or insult

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OHy, though without the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely, was saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive— Hardy

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your attitude is offensive. Is any given truth any the less true for having been uttered more than once?— Theodore Sturgeon

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and frequently it suggests the evocation of such aversion that endurance involves mental strain or moral distaste

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a most untypical story for Alan to tell, a little out of place, not offensive exactly, but irritating and inconsequential— Mailer

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or it may imply a vileness (as of appearance or odor) that excites nausea or extreme disgust

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her head thrown back, her face discolored, her eyes bulging, her mouth wet and yawning: a sight horribly offensive— Bennett

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Something loathsome is so foul or obscene that one cannot look upon it, hear it, feel it, or have to do with it without a sense of deep disgust and abhorrence

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a most loathsome literary world, necrophilic to the core—they murder their writers, and then decorate their graves— Mailer

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Often the term is not clearly distinguishable from offensive in the sense of disgustingly nauseating but is applied more often to things which are generally or universally distasteful; thus, some people find the heavy fragrance of tuberoses offensive, but nearly everyone finds the sight and odor of meat rotting and crawling with maggots loathsome

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loathsome dis- eases

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loathsome prison conditions

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takes some dirty horrible incident or sight of the battlefront and describes it in loathsome detail— Rose Macaulay

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Something repulsive is so ugly in its appearance or so completely lacking in all that attracts or allures or charms or even challenges interest that it either drives one away or makes one unwilling to dwell on it

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Mary was not so repulsive and unsisterly as Elizabeth— Austen

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work which is now repulsive can be made no irksomer than the general run of necessary labor— Shaw

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in those days all school books were as repulsive as publishers could make them. Their appearance went a long way in discouraging any intimacy with their contents— Repplier

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he smiled at me, showing two rows of pale-pink, toothless gums, but it was a pleasant smile and there was nothing repulsive about the way the gums showed— Dahl

}

Something repugnant (see also REPUGNANT 1) is highly offensive or loathsome because in direct conflict with one's nature, one's principles, and one's tastes and irreconcilable with them

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this frightful condition of internal strain and instability was . . . intensely repugnant to human nature, being a condition of chronic terror that at last became unbearable— Shaw

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the door is not barred and bolted for a solution less repugnant to our deepest intuitions— Eddington

}

Something revolting is so extremely offensive, loathsome, repulsive, or repugnant to a person of delicate sensibilities that the sight or thought of it arouses in him a desire or determination to resist or rebel

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his whole body shivered and started into awe-inspiring movement monstrous and inhuman, revolting as a spectacle of degrading vice— O'Flaherty

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to developed sensibilities the facts of war are revolting and horrifying— Huxley

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revolting cant about the duty of obedience and the wickedness of resistance to law— Henry Adams

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Analogous words: repellent, *repugnant, abhorrent, distasteful, obnoxious, invidious: *hateful, odious, abominable, detestable

offensive n *attack, aggression, offense

Analogous words: assault, *attack, onslaught, onset