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Offend vs Harass - What's the difference?

offend | harass |

As verbs the difference between offend and harass

is that offend is   To hurt the feelings of; to displease; to make angry; to insult while harass is to fatigue or to tire with repeated and exhausting efforts.

As a noun harass is

devastation; waste.

offend

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • (transitive)  To hurt the feelings of; to displease; to make angry; to insult.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=6 citation , passage=‘[…] I remember a lady coming to inspect St. Mary's Home where I was brought up and seeing us all in our lovely Elizabethan uniforms we were so proud of, and bursting into tears all over us because “it was wicked to dress us like charity children”. We nearly crowned her we were so offended . She saw us but she didn't know us, did she?’.}}
  • (intransitive)  To feel or become offended, take insult.
  • (transitive)  To physically harm, pain.
  • (transitive)  To annoy, cause discomfort or resent.
  • (intransitive)  To sin, transgress divine law or moral rules.
  • (transitive)  To transgress or violate a law or moral requirement.
  • (obsolete, transitive, archaic, biblical)  To cause to stumble; to cause to sin or to fall.
  • * 1896 , Adolphus Frederick Schauffler, Select Notes on the International Sunday School Lessons , W. A. Wilde company, Page 161,
  • "If any man offend not (stumbles not, is not tripped up) in word, the same is a perfect man."
  • * New Testament'', Matthew 5:29 (''Sermon on the Mount ),
  • "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out."

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * offendedly * offendedness * offender * reoffend

    harass

    English

    Verb

    (es)
  • To fatigue or to tire with repeated and exhausting efforts.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or
  • To annoy endlessly or systematically; to molest.
  • * 1877 , (Anna Sewell), (Black Beauty) Chapter 23[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Black_Beauty/23]
  • In my old home, I always knew that John and my master were my friends; but here, although in many ways I was well treated, I had no friend. York might have known, and very likely did know, how that rein harassed me; but I suppose he took it as a matter of course that could not be helped; at any rate nothing was done to relieve me.
  • To put excessive burdens upon; to subject to anxieties.
  • in the early 1940s.

    Synonyms

    * hassle * harry * chivy or chivvy * chevy or chevvy * beset * plague * molest * provoke

    Derived terms

    * harasser * harassment

    Noun

  • (obsolete) devastation; waste
  • (Milton)
  • (obsolete) worry; harassment
  • (Byron)