Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The part of the sea visible from shore that is very distant or beyond anchoring ground.
- idiom. in the offing In the near or immediate future; soon to come: with exams finished and graduation in the offing.
- idiom. in the offing Nearby; at hand.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. That part of the open visible sea that is remote from the shore, beyond the anchoring-ground, or beyond the mid-line between the shore and the horizon.
Wiktionary
- n. nautical The area of the sea in which a ship can be seen in the distance from land, excluding the parts nearest the shore, and beyond the anchoring ground.
- n. nautical The distance that a ship at sea keeps away from land, often because of navigational dangers, fog and other hazards; a position at a distance from shore.
- n. figuratively The foreseeable future. Chiefly in the phrase in the offing.
- v. present participle of off.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. That part of the sea at a good distance from the shore, or where there is deep water and no need of a pilot; also, distance from the shore
WordNet 3.0
- n. the near or foreseeable future
- n. the part of the sea that can be seen from the shore and is beyond the anchoring area
Examples
“The story is based on an original idea imagined by Cody about a newly possessed cheerleader named Jennifer that turns into a killer who specializes in offing her male classmates.”
First Poster for Jennifer's Body with Megan Fox « FirstShowing.net
“The story, scripted by Oscar winning Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody, is about a newly possessed cheerleader who turns into a killer that specializes in offing her male classmates.”
Megan Fox Has Gone Nude in Jennifer's Body?! « FirstShowing.net
“The complete lack of tension involved in offing two of the show’s most important characters was a big fat drag.”
“Another in the offing is the Super Bowl indicator, which pred icts stock increases in the years when a team from the National Football League ' s National Football Conference wins the Super Bowl — as the NFC ' s New Orleans Saints did in February.”
“State of the Career: Volunteering is still the most fun I can have with my clothes on, and there are a couple of job applications in the offing, which is similarly taking up a lot of my limited attention span.”
“Remember Dukakis -- no, not Olympia, but Michael -- when he was asked whether he would support the idea of offing the killer of HIS WIFE, repeat, HIS WIFE!, he said no.”
“If this team stays together, another deep tournament run could be in offing.”
“(Still in the offing was the second, wider and more prolonged phase involving the forces of the five Arab nations that invaded Palestine in mid-May.)”
The Wall Street Journal: 1948, Israel and the Palestinians: The True Story
“Immediately in the offing was the walling off an area of veld used for recreation, but which was dangerous at night in its present state.”
“_Zungeru_, rolling sluggishly at a single anchor, while steaming slowly in the offing was a light cruiser detailed to act as escort to the convoy, for more transports were under orders to rendezvous off Cape”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘offing’.
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Mobying Along
looks like there's not an open Moby Dick list. So now there is.
hypos, Manhattoes, circumambulate, mole, grapnels, bowsprit, asphaltic, mazy, tranced, cataract, ungraspable, judgmatically and 227 more...
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Moby Dick
Words of interest from the book Moby Dick.
arrant, obstreperously, coffer-dam, farrago, rejoinder, counterpane, hamper, commend, grego, dreadnought, psalmody, expostulation and 85 more...
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some-ing
king, offering, blessing, coping, earnings, trappings, breeding, during, offing, refreshing, sitting, outing and 208 more...
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wachasbowers's list
jejeune, morocco, offing, porcine, temerity, toque, maxixe, brummagem
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Is it morning yet?
coterie, lexeme, counterbalance, forthright, pigtail, ponytail, french-braid, barrette, listless, counsel, sitting duck, dead duck and 268 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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A Matter Of Time
Favorite time-related words.
vespertine, twilight, gloaming, eftsoon, eventide, dawn, eos, dusk, witching hour, ephemeral, candlemark, autumnal and 122 more...
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heart of darkness
yawl, sea-reach, offing, barge, sprit, estuary, yarn, aft, mizzenmast, placid, gauzy, diaphanous and 141 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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My GRE
concomitant, mendacity, corollary, mandate, ascertain, exacerbate, substantiate, perennial, exemplify, hegemony, acrimonious, repertoire and 653 more...
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mccaff's Words
schadenfreude, defenestration, monogamous, epipsychidion, chintz, befall, brouhaha, shenanigans, hooligans, lambasted, servitude, portcullis and 113 more...
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Oblivion
By David Foster Wallace
ossify, reverie, hypergeometric, emetic, mien, cruciform, accreted, perpend, rheostat, predilections, coccyx, hirsute and 178 more...
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GRE
partisan, erudite, insular, cosmopolitan, imperturbable, facetious, recapitulate, repudiate, inscrutable, baseness, bailiwick, freeloader and 315 more...
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Euphonious Words
The most mellifluous-sounding words.
assemblage, becoming, beleaguer, bucolic, bungalow, chatoyant, comely, conflate, cynosure, dalliance, demesne, demure and 100 more...
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Scriptie: The Shakespearean Language ...
It isn't all about fucking cocksuckers. There aren't too many shows on TV that use Wordie words. (So of course it was cancelled.)
Best viewed in cloud format.sweggen, hooplehead, cocksucker, dope, yankton, camp, pussy, bonanza, laudanum, chinaman, hoecake, free gratis and 210 more...
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Selected Terms from Falconer's New Un...
1815 edition; ed. William Burney (London: Chatham Publishing, 2006).
widows' men, ballatoon, boomkin, leefange, falconet, maculae, lepus, koff, pardo, periagua, dingass, saik and 238 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for offing.
reesetee See also in the offing. Oct 14, 2008
chained_bear "Offing, implies out at sea, or at a good distance from the shore, where there is deep water, and no need of a pilot to conduct the ship; thus, if a ship from shore be seen sailing out towards the sea, they say, 'She stands for the offing.' And if a ship having the shore near her, have another a good way without her, or towards the sea, they say, 'That ship is in the offing.'"
—Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1816), 326 Oct 14, 2008