Crossword clues for offensive
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Offensive \Of*fen"sive\, n. The state or posture of one who offends or makes attack; aggressive attitude; the act of the attacking party; -- opposed to defensive.
To take the offensive, To act on the offensive, To go on the offensive, to be the attacking party; to initiate hostilities.
Offensive \Of*fen"sive\, a. [Cf. F. offensif. See Offend.]
Giving offense; causing displeasure or resentment; displeasing; annoying; as, offensive words.
Giving pain or unpleasant sensations; disagreeable; revolting; noxious; as, an offensive smell; offensive sounds. ``Offensive to the stomach.''
--Bacon.-
Making the first attack; assailant; aggressive; hence, used in attacking; -- opposed to defensive; as, an offensive war; offensive weapons.
League offensive and defensive, a leaque that requires all the parties to it to make war together against any foe, and to defend one another if attacked.
Syn: Displeasing; disagreeable; distasteful; obnoxious; abhorrent; disgusting; impertinent; rude; saucy; reproachful; opprobrious; insulting; insolent; abusive; scurrilous; assailant; attacking; invading. [1913 Webster] -- Of*fen"sive*ly, adv. -- Of*fen"sive*ness, n.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"attacking" (1540s), "insulting" (1570s), both from Middle French offensif (16c.) and directly from Medieval Latin offensivus, from Latin offens-, past participle stem of offendere "offend" (see offend). Related: Offensively; offensiveness.
"condition of attacking, aggressive action," 1720, from offensive (adj.).
Wiktionary
a. 1 Causing offense; arousing a visceral reaction of disgust, anger, or hatred. 2 Relating to an offense or attack, as opposed to defensive. n. 1 (context countable military English) An attack. 2 (context uncountable English) The posture of attacking or being able to attack.
WordNet
adj. violating or tending to violate or offend against; "violative of the principles of liberty"; "considered such depravity offensive against all laws of humanity" [syn: violative]
for the purpose of attack rather than defense; "offensive weapons" [ant: defensive]
causing anger or annoyance; "offensive remarks" [ant: inoffensive]
morally offensive; "an unsavory reputation"; "an unsavory scandal" [syn: unsavory, unsavoury] [ant: savory]
unpleasant or disgusting especially to the senses; "offensive odors" [ant: inoffensive]
of an offensive substitute for inoffensive terminology; "`nigger' is a dysphemistic term for `African-American'" [syn: dysphemistic] [ant: euphemistic]
causing or able to cause nausea; "a nauseating smell"; "nauseous offal"; "a sickening stench" [syn: nauseating, nauseous, noisome, loathsome, sickening, vile]
Wikipedia
Offensive may refer to:
- Offensive, the former name of the Dutch political party Socialist Alternative
- Offensive (military), an attack
- Profanity, also known as "offensive language"
An offensive is a military operation that seeks through aggressive projection of armed force to occupy territory, gain an objective or achieve some larger strategic, operational or tactical goal. Another term for an offensive often used by the media is ' invasion', or the more general 'attack'.
The offensive was considered a pre-eminent means of producing victory, although with the recognition of a defensive phase at some stage of the execution.
A quick guide to the size or scope of the offensive is to consider the number of troops involved in the side initiating the offensive.
Offensives are largely conducted as a means to secure initiative in a confrontation between opponents. They can be waged on land, at sea or in the air.
Naval offensives, such as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, can have wide-ranging implications for national strategies, and require significant logistical commitment to destroy enemy naval capabilities. It can also be used to interdict enemy shipping, such as World War II's Battle of the Atlantic. Naval offensives can also be tactical in nature, such as Operation Coronado IX conducted by the United States Navy's Mobile Riverine Force during the Vietnam War.
An air offensive is an operation that can describe any number of different types of operations, usually restricted to specific types of aircraft. The offensives conducted with use of fighter aircraft are predominantly concerned with establishing air superiority in a given air space, or over a given territory. A bomber offensive is sometimes also known as a strategic bombing offensive and was prominently used by the Allies on a large scale during World War II. Use of ground attack aircraft in support of ground offensives can be said to be an air offensive, such as that performed in the opening phase of the Red Army's Operations Kutuzov and Rumyantsev, when hundreds of Il-2 aircraft were used en masse to overwhelm the Wehrmacht's ground troops.
Usage examples of "offensive".
There are, furthermore, the accompanying symptoms of a coated tongue, bitter taste in the mouth, unpleasant eructations, scalding of the throat from regurgitation, offensive breath, sick headache, giddiness, disturbed sleep, sallow countenance, heart-burn, morbid craving after food, constant anxiety and apprehension, fancied impotency, and fickleness.
To save them present pain at the risk of future anguish, to consult the feelings of her brother, in preference to his morality, would be forgetting every lesson of her life, which, from its earliest dawn, had imbibed a love of virtue, that made her consider whatever was offensive to it as equally disgusting and unhappy.
Manties to accept the attritional losses major offensives of their own would entail.
In this important fortress, the vigilance of Chosroes had deposited a magazine of offensive and defensive arms, sufficient for five times the number, not only of the garrison, but of the besiegers themselves.
Badgers were possibly the meanest creatures in the region, even above the orcs, quicker to anger than Bluster the bear and quite willing to take the offensive against any opponent, no matter how large.
Russians have also launched a general offensive all along the line to pin the Royal Norwegian Army while they bring in their amphibious troops to support the Brekke paradrop.
Although it was evident by her manner that the woman sought privacy in her request, the waiter obviously considered the matter of no importance and answered her in a brusque, offensive voice.
They, also, belong to the great group of burrowers, and their coats of mail assume both offensive and defensive characters.
Ben Montoya warns solemnly that Biblical analogies are exclusionary and very often offensive in our increasingly diverse society.
They were determined to pursue the victory, and to employ against the exclusionists those very offensive arms, however unfair, which that party had laid up in store against their antagonists.
To apply it to the case of France, if there had been a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, between the United States and that country, the unqualified acknowledgment of the new government would have put the United States in a condition to become an associate in the war with France, and would have laid the legislature under an obligation, if required, and there was otherwise no valid excuse, of exercising its power of declaring war.
Sir John French thought the moment had come for an offensive wheel round Menin towards the Scheldt.
But it seemed to me that they were more offensive a millionfold than White fags would have been.
Overindulgence in something as delicate as love is to be found monstrously offensive in the eyes of the God of Love.
Army commanders shared about the success of an offensive at this time or to question the immorality of attacking Belgium and Holland, whose neutrality and borders the German government had solemnly guaranteed.