Other forms: offended, offending, offends
To offend someone is to hurt their feelings or their sense of what is decent. A joke that lands badly, a remark about somebody's cooking, a question about money at the wrong table.
It lives in the passive: she was offended by the photo, he seemed offended that nobody had asked. The noun is offence, offense in American spelling, and it does two jobs — the feeling you take, and the crime you commit: a first offence, a criminal offence. From that comes offender, a person who breaks the law, and reoffend, to do it again. Offend also takes AGAINST for rules and taste: the tower offends against every planning rule in the town. The adjective is offensive, which doubles as a noun in war — an offensive is an attack.
1verboffendTo hurt someone's feelings or upset their sense of what is proper.
“I hope the joke didn't offend anyone.”
2verbagainstTo go against a rule, a law or good taste — used with AGAINST.
“The design offends against every rule in the planning book.”
3verbcommitTo commit a crime.
“Most of those released do not offend again.”
Also accepted in games: upset
There is a punch buried in offend. Latin offendō meant to strike, to blunder, to commit an offence, built from ob-, against, and fendō, strike — the same fendō sitting inside defend. Middle French offendre carried it into English, and along the way the blow turned into hurt feelings.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷʰen-
Latin
offendō — strike, blunder, commit an offense
Middle French
offendre
English, today
offend
Built from
From Middle French offendre, from Latin offendō (“strike, blunder, commit an offense”), from ob- (“against”) + fendō (“strike”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA