Other forms: offerings
An offering is something given up on purpose — food, money, a gift — laid down for a god, a temple or a church. Coins in the collection plate, fruit left at a shrine, flowers put on a grave.
Outside religion, an offering is whatever someone puts forward for others to take or buy: the cafe autumn offerings, a publisher offerings for spring, the latest offering from a film director. In finance, an offering is a sale of new shares or bonds to investors, as in an initial public offering. A peace offering is a small gift meant to end a quarrel — a bottle of wine left on a doorstep after a row. The religious sense takes make: you make an offering. And the word carries a faint sneer in reviews, where calling a film the latest offering from a studio hints at low expectations.
1nounofferingSomething given to a god, a temple or a church as an act of worship.~45%
“They left an offering of bread and oil at the shrine.”
2nounavailableSomething made available for people to buy, use or look at.~15%
“The bakery winter offerings include a spiced loaf and a dark rye.”
3noungiftA gift given to please someone or to make peace.~2%
“He arrived with flowers as a peace offering.”
4nounsaleA sale of shares or bonds to investors.~38%
“The company raised forty million pounds in its share offering.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 19 sentences found in the wild and placed 13 of them on a sense (6 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
offering is a gift.
Offering is offer with -ing on the end, one of the plainest words English owns for one of its oldest acts. It shouldered aside the native Old English word for the same thing, hūsl, which dropped out of use entirely.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰer-
Latin
offerō — to present, bring before
Old French
offre — offer
Old English
offrian — offer or make a sacrifice
Middle English
offer
English
offer
English, today
offering
Built from
From offer + ing. Displaced native Old English hūsl. offer comes from Middle English offer, from Old English offrian (“offer or make a sacrifice”) rather than from Old French offre (“offer”), from offrir (“to offer”), from Latin offerō (“to present, bring before”). Compare frr offer (“sacrifice, donation, fee”), Dutch offer (“offering, sacrifice”), German Opfer (“victim, sacrifice”), Danish offer (“victim, sacrifice”), Icelandic offr (“offering”). See verb below.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA