offending
/əˈfɛndɪŋ/noun, adjective, verb
offending is spelled O-F-F-E-N-D-I-N-G: 9 letters and 3 syllables. It appears 2.7 times per million words in written English, the 16,455th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, offending means “The act of committing an offence” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of offending is offendings.
How many letters and syllables are in offending?
| Letters | 9: O-F-F-E-N-D-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 2.7 times per million words; the 16,455th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is offending?
Offending appears 2.7 times per million words in written English, the 16,455th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce offending?
- /əˈfɛndɪŋ/
Offending has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-AnotherFriendlyHuman-offending.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of offending
- offendings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does offending mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The act of committing an offence.
adjective
- 1
Responsible; to be blamed.
Something in the fridge smelled terrible. The offending article was soon identified and removed.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of offend
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Offending in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Translations:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.