Offensive vs Nefarious - What's the difference?
offensive | nefarious | Related terms |
Causing offense; arousing a visceral reaction of disgust, anger, or hatred.
Relating to an offense or attack, as opposed to defensive.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=
, volume=188, issue=26, page=6, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= Having to do with play directed at scoring.
(countable, military) An attack.
(uncountable) The posture of attacking or being able to attack.
Sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics.
* 1828 , , The Red Rover , ch. 2:
* 1877 , , The Life of Cicero , ch. 9:
* 1921 , , The Indiscretions of Archie , ch. 26:
* 2009 Oct. 14, Monica Davey, "
As adjectives the difference between offensive and nefarious
is that offensive is causing offense; arousing a visceral reaction of disgust, anger, or hatred while nefarious is sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics.As a noun offensive
is an attack.offensive
English
Adjective
(en adjective)Ed Pilkington
‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told, passage=In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way.}}
Usage notes
* Nouns to which "offensive" is often applied: content, material, language, word, comment, remark, statement, speech, joke, humor, image, picture, art, behavior, conduct, act, action. * When the second syllable is emphasized, "offensive" is defined as "insulting". When the first syllable is emphasized, it refers to the attacker of a conflict or the team in a sport who possesses the ball.Synonyms
* aggressive * invidious (Intending to cause envious offense)Antonyms
* inoffensive (not causing offense or disgust ) * defensive (relating or causing defence )Derived terms
* offensivenessNoun
- The Marines today launched a major offensive .
- He took the offensive in the press, accusing his opponent of corruption.
External links
* * ----nefarious
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- "If the vessel be no fair-trading slaver, nor a common cruiser of his Majesty, it is as tangible as the best man's reasoning, that she may be neither more nor less than the ship of that nefarious pirate the Red Rover."
- Mommsen . . . declares that Catiline in particular was "one of the most nefarious' men in that ' nefarious age. His villanies belong to the criminal records, not to history."
- The fact that the room was still in darkness made it obvious that something nefarious was afoot. Plainly there was dirty work in preparation at the cross-roads.
Fact Checker Finds Falsehoods in Remarks," New York Times (retrieved 12 May 2014):
- “I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington.”