Offensive vs Insensitive - What's the difference?
offensive | insensitive |
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.
Not expressing normal physical feeling
* 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula
Not expressing normal emotional feelings; cold; tactless; undiplomatic
* 1895, Grant Allen, The British Barbarians
* 1994, Jann Arden, "Insensitive" (song)
As adjectives the difference between offensive and insensitive
is that offensive is causing offense; arousing a visceral reaction of disgust, anger, or hatred while insensitive is not expressing normal physical feeling.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
* * ----insensitive
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- It is something like the way dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm by contact.
- Somehow, when Bertram Ingledew let it once be felt he did not wish to be questioned on any particular point, even women managed to restrain their curiosity: and he would have been either a very bold or a very insensitive man who would have ventured to continue questioning him any further.
- Oh I really should have known by the time you drove me home, / By the vagueness in your eyes, your casual good-byes, / By the chill in your embrace and the expression on your face, / That told me you might have some advice to give / On how to be insensitive .