Offensive vs Insult - What's the difference?
offensive | insult |
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.
(obsolete) To behave in an obnoxious and superior manner (over, against).
*, II.3.3:
To offend (someone) by being rude, insensitive or insolent; to demean or affront (someone).
(obsolete) To leap or trample upon; to make a sudden onset upon.
An action or form of speech deliberately intended to be rude.
* Savage
* 1987 , Jamie Lee Curtis, A Fish Called Wanda :
Anything that causes offence/offense, e.g. by being of an unacceptable quality.
(medicine) Something causing disease or injury to the body or bodily processes.
* 2006 , Stephen G. Lomber, Jos J. Eggermont, Reprogramming the Cerebral Cortex (page 415)
* 2011 , Terence Allen and Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction , Oxford 2011, p. 96:
(obsolete) The act of leaping on; onset; attack.
As nouns the difference between offensive and insult
is that offensive is offensive (posture of attacking or being able to attack) while insult is an action or form of speech deliberately intended to be rude.As a verb insult is
(obsolete|intransitive) to behave in an obnoxious and superior manner (over, against).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
* * ----insult
English
Verb
(en verb)- thou hast lost all, poor thou art, dejected, in pain of body, grief of mind, thine enemies insult over thee, thou art as bad as Job […].
- (Shakespeare)
Synonyms
* (to offend) abuse, affront, offend, slight * See alsoAntonyms
*complimentNoun
(en noun)- the ruthless sneer that insult adds to grief
- To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people!
- The way the orchestra performed tonight was an insult to my ears.
- Within the complex genome of most organisms there are alternative multiple pathways of proteins which can help the individual cell survive a variety of insults , for example radiation, toxic chemicals, heat, excessive or reduced oxygen.
- (Dryden)
