offensible

English

Etymology

From offense +‎ -ible.

Adjective

offensible (comparative more offensible, superlative most offensible)

1. That may give offense; offensive.
   • 1555 May 31, John Calvin, Letter to Richard Coxe and Other Englishmen at Frankfurt:

     Nether do I se to what purpose it is to burthen the Churche with tryfflinge and unprofitable Ceremonies; or as I maie terme them with their propre name, hurtefull and offensible ceremonies, when as there is libertie to have a symple and pure Order .

   • 1599 July 11, Robert Devereux, (Please provide the book title or journal name):

     Your Lordships say that her Majesty thinketh it strange, and taketh it offensible, that I appointed the Earl of Southampton general of the horse , seeing her Majesty not only denied it when I moved it, but gave an express prohibition to any such choice.

   • 1910 August 1, Rupert Hughes, “The Exquisite Thug”, in Delta Upsilon Quarterly, volume 28, number 4, page 488:

     But the Lanox men were too hilarious, with counting their unhatched goals to be offensible.

   • 1962, Annual Report of the Surgeon General, United States Army, page 107:

     Oral insecticides, whoh have proved to be effective in experimental animals, have been developed and show promise for use as an insect-repellent pill which, when swallowed by humans, will cause the body to give off odors offensible to bugs , yet not be detectable to other humans.

   • 2006, To Examine the Impact and Effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act, page 534:

     If they decided that they were going to go down a list and we know that there are Canadians who are heare undocumented, if they decided to try to identify all of the Canadians on that list and would challenge them solely based on their name, for some reason I think it's sometimes difficult to articulate and sometimes difficult for people to understand that identifying someone simply becaus of their last name is what we call racial profiling and especially in regards to a constitutional guaranteed right, it's extremely offensible and extremely chilling.

   • 2021, Andrew P. Porter, The Accountant's Tale, page 27:

     What is painful is offensible and whether offense is taken often depends on context, but context is left out, to be supplied by the hearer or reader, and so it is ambiguous.

2. Able to take offense; offendable.
   • 1857, John Byrom, The Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom, page 510:

     Not having danced there for many years, I was then invited to it by a lady out of the country whom I had too much regard for to decline the favour; and asking her what she would please to have called for, she said, Sir Watkin's Jig, which accordingly I called for by that appellation and no other, not having the least design of giving offence to any body, or suspiciou that any body would then choose to be so offensible as to object to it, much less to make any kind of disturbance about it.

   • 1898, Robert Browning, The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, page 142:

     Not because I am spoilt, though you knit your brows and think so. . nor because I am exacting and offensible, though you may fancy that too.

   • 2017, DJ Edwardson, The Last Motley:

     Ah, no offense taken, lad. I'm the least offensible man you'll ever meet.

3. Conducive to and associated with the commitment of offenses, especially criminal offenses.

   offensible space

   • 1976, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations, Export Reorganization Act of 1976, page 504:

     I might add to that, as a technical matter, the type of reactors the U.S. suppliers are not exporting, so called light water reactors, are the less offensible in terms of the proliferation problem, of potentially any other reactor type that has been developed.

   • 1995, John Hagan, Ruth D. Peterson, Crime and Inequality, page 27:

     But this is only one way in which some social and geographical areas are more "offensible" than others.

   • 2019, Rachel Armitage, Paul Ekblom, Rebuilding Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design:

     In the interpersonal domain, too, the interaction relates to script clashes between the relevant roles; how the environment facilitieate one or the other side; and how it can be modified to favour preventers (e.g. making space defensible) or offenders (making space offensible).

   • 2019, Quillin Woods, Psychological Development: Ethical Issues, page 189:

     Atlas says that if we can make houses and neighborhoods defensible then criminals such as drug dealers can make their house offensible and then carrying out such crimes will be even easier.

References

• “offensible”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.