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say it: uh-FEN-siv
offensive is an adjective and noun meaning "violating or tending to violate or offend against". It carries 7 recorded senses.
for the purpose of attack rather than defense
“offensive weapons”
unpleasant or disgusting especially to the senses
“offensive odors”
causing or able to cause nausea
“a nauseating smell”
“nauseous offal”
“a sickening stench”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for offensive come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.