offshooting

English

Noun

offshooting (plural offshootings)

1. An offshoot; a diversion or branching off.
   • 1852, Herman Melville, Pierre; or, The Ambiguities:

     I must be shorter; I did not mean to turn off into the mere offshootings of my story, here and there; but the dreaminess I speak of leads me sometimes; and I, as impotent then, obey the dreamy prompting.

   • 1869, William Conant Church, The Galaxy (volume 7, page 103)

     At the first offshooting of the English language from its present stem, its growth and development began at once to tend toward logical simplicity […]

Anagrams

• shooting off