offence

Other spellings

• (US) offense

Pronunciation

• IPA ^(key): /əˈfɛns/
• Hyphenation: of‧fence

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

Singular offence

Plural offences

1. (countable) An offence is an action that breaks the law.

   Murder is a serious criminal offence.

2. (uncountable) When you give offence to someone, you do something that they don't like.

   I didn't mean to give offence, but I didn't know that you don't do that in China.

3. (uncountable) The offence is the person or team who is attacking.

   For the first time in the game, Arsenal goes on the offence.