offending

1. 1
   adjective

   Describing the person or thing responsible for a problem and deserving of blame.

   The mechanic removed the offending part and the engine ran smoothly again.

   Inspectors traced the smell to an offending pipe beneath the kitchen floor.

   Note

   An adjective of blame that sits before its noun, usually after the: the offending article, the offending email. It is readily applied to things rather than people, so a smelly item in the fridge or a scam message can be the culprit. It does not compare, so nothing is "more offending" than anything else; a thing either is the one at fault or it is not.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of offend.

   His constant interruptions were offending the other guests at the dinner.

   The comedian risked offending half the audience with that final remark.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. As a participle it builds progressive tenses (were offending the guests); as a gerund it follows verbs such as risk and can still take a direct object. It usually carries the transitive sense of giving affront, but the intransitive senses of sinning or transgressing come through it too. Unlike the noun for wrongdoing, the gerund never takes a plural.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act of committing a crime or breaking a rule.

   The court considered his long pattern of offending before sentencing.

   Early intervention can prevent offending among at-risk teenagers.

   Similarlawbreaking, criminality, wrongdoing, delinquency

   Note

   A true noun, not just a verb form: it stands without an object and can even be pluralized. Rebecca S. Shoemaker's The White Court (2004) speaks of defendants' "activities and offendings." Used uncountably, it names wrongdoing as a pattern or habit, as in a long pattern of offending, without pointing to any single crime.

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