Alternative forms

• off-shore

Etymology

From off- +‎ shoreCategory:English terms prefixed with off-#SHORE.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɒfˈʃɔː(ɹ)/Category:English 2-syllable words#OFFSHORECategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#OFFSHORE

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

  Category:English terms with audio pronunciation#OFFSHORE
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)Category:Rhymes:English/ɔː(ɹ)#OFFSHORECategory:Rhymes:English/ɔː(ɹ)/2 syllables#OFFSHORE

Adjective

offshore (not comparable)Category:English lemmas#OFFSHORECategory:English adjectives#OFFSHORECategory:English uncomparable adjectives#OFFSHORECategory:English entries with incorrect language header#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with entries#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with 5 entries#OFFSHORE

1. Moving away from the shore.
2. Located in the sea away from the coast.

   an offshore oil rigCategory:English terms with usage examples#OFFSHORE

   • 1992, Richard Louis Edmonds, edited by Graham P. Chapman and Kathleen M. Baker, The Changing Geography of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau (The Changing Geography of Asia)‎, Routledge, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 160:

     Since 1949, Taiwan has remained under Nationalist (Kuomintang) control along with the off-shore islands of Chin-men (Kinmen) and Ma-tsu (Lien-chiang County) in Fujian Province. Chin-men and Lien-chiang County are to end their period of direct military rule and to elect their first country magistrates in 1993.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

   • 2020 December 22, Henrik Pryser Libell, Derrick Bryson Taylor, “Norway’s Supreme Court Makes Way for More Arctic Drilling”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN, archived from the original on 22 December 2020:

     The judges said that the right to a clean environment did not bar the government from drilling for offshore oil, and that Norway did not legally carry the responsibility for emissions stemming from oil it has exported.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

3. Located in another country, especially one having beneficial tax laws or labor costs.
   • 2000 June 15, Lisa Guernsey, “Offshore Scanners”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN, archived from the original on 3 February 2018:

     American companies use offshore services for one reason, said Herbert F. Schantz, a consultant in Sterling, Va.: cheap labor.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

   • 2009 October 3, Landon Thomas Jr, “Offshore Haven Considers a Heresy: Taxation”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN, archived from the original on 27 September 2018:

     With pressure building in Europe and the United States for a systemwide crackdown on offshore tax havens —the Caymans prefer to call themselves a tax-neutral portal Britain appears determined to make an example of a place that has become a symbol of secrecy and intrigue.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

   • 2009 December 18, “Guantánamo Must Be Closed”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN, archived from the original on 27 October 2020:

     Moving the prisoners is an indispensable step toward closing an extra-legal offshore lockup that has stained this nation’s reputation and become a recruitment tool for terrorists.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

   • 2016 May 23, Roger Cohen, “Australia’s Offshore Cruelty”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN, archived from the original on 21 October 2018:

     It begins with the anodyne name for the procedures — “offshore processing” — as if these desperate human beings were just an accumulation of data.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

Adverb

offshore (not comparable)Category:English lemmas#OFFSHORECategory:English adverbs#OFFSHORECategory:English uncomparable adverbs#OFFSHORECategory:English entries with incorrect language header#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with entries#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with 5 entries#OFFSHORE

1. Away from the shore.
2. At some distance from the shore.

Verb

offshore (third-person singular simple present offshores, present participle offshoring, simple past and past participle offshored)Category:English lemmas#OFFSHORECategory:English verbs#OFFSHORECategory:English entries with incorrect language header#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with entries#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with 5 entries#OFFSHORE

1. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#OFFSHORE) To move industrial production from one region to another or from one country to another, in order to seek lower business costs, such as labor.
   • 2005 July 25, Robert J. Samuelson, “The World Is Still Round”, in Newsweek, page 49:

     The McKinsey Global Institute says that 750,000 American service jobs have been “offshored” out of total U.S. jobs of about 140 million.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

   • 2009, Adjiedj Bakas, Beyond the Crisis: The Future of Capitalism, Meghan-Kiffer Press, →ISBN, page 109:

     India has become the leading destination for offshored services.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

   • 2010, Paul Craig Roberts, How the Economy Was Lost, AK Press, →ISBN, page 8:

     Corporations offshore their production, because they can more cheaply produce abroad what they sell to Americans. When corporations bring their offshored production to the U.S. to sell, the goods count as imports.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

Noun

offshore (plural offshores)Category:English lemmas#OFFSHORECategory:English nouns#OFFSHORECategory:English countable nouns#OFFSHORECategory:English entries with incorrect language header#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with entries#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with 5 entries#OFFSHORE

1. An area of or portion of sea away from the shore.
   • 1884, Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Washington: United States Bureau of Fisheries, page XXVI:

     This problem, so far as the offshores of the United States is concerned, is one that is eminently worthy of the attention of the United States Fish Commission and the support of Congress in its attempt to solve it.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

2. An island, outcrop, or other land away from shore.
   • 1958 October 11, “Signs of improvement”, in Business Week, page 36:

     The Nationalists see that they have nothing to gain—in fact, a lot to lose—by hanging onto the offshores as military bases.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

3. Something or someone in, from, or associated with another country.
   • 1984, Richard H. Blum, Offshore Haven Banks, Trusts, and Companies, New York: Praeger, →ISBN, page 31:

     If costs are unequally imposed by governments on their offshores, the government makes the U.S. banking industry less competitive.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

   • 2001, Cindy Hahamovitch, “In America Life is Given Away”, in Catherine McNicol Stock, Robert D. Johnston, editors, The Countryside in the Age of the Modern State, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 136:

     Though American legislators renewed restrictive immigration policies in the two decades after the war, they allowed employers of farmworkers to import some 4.5 million Mexican "braceros" and Caribbean "offshores," as the workers were called.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OFFSHORE

See also

• deep-sea
• inshore
• nearshore
• noshore
• onshore
• reshore

Alternative forms

• off-shore, off shore (pre-1990 spelling)

Etymology

Borrowed from EnglishCategory:French terms borrowed from English#OFFSHORECategory:French terms derived from English#OFFSHORE offshore.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɔf.ʃɔʁ/Category:French 2-syllable words#OFFSHORECategory:French terms with IPA pronunciation#OFFSHORE

Adjective

offshore (plural offshores)Category:French lemmas#OFFSHORECategory:French adjectives#OFFSHORECategory:French entries with incorrect language header#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with entries#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with 5 entries#OFFSHORE

1. offshore, in the sea away from the coast
2. offshore, in another country

Etymology

From EnglishCategory:Norwegian Bokmål terms borrowed from English#OFFSHORECategory:Norwegian Bokmål terms derived from English#OFFSHORE offshore.

Adjective

offshore (indeclinable)Category:Norwegian Bokmål lemmas#OFFSHORECategory:Norwegian Bokmål adjectives#OFFSHORECategory:Norwegian Bokmål entries with incorrect language header#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with entries#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with 5 entries#OFFSHORE

1. offshore

References

• “offshore” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Etymology

From EnglishCategory:Norwegian Nynorsk terms borrowed from English#OFFSHORECategory:Norwegian Nynorsk terms derived from English#OFFSHORE offshore.

Adjective

offshore (indeclinable)Category:Norwegian Nynorsk lemmas#OFFSHORECategory:Norwegian Nynorsk adjectives#OFFSHORECategory:Norwegian Nynorsk entries with incorrect language header#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with entries#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with 5 entries#OFFSHORE

1. offshore

References

• “offshore” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Alternative forms

• off-shore

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from EnglishCategory:Spanish terms borrowed from English#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish unadapted borrowings from English#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish terms derived from English#OFFSHORE offshore.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ofˈʃoɾ/ [ofˈʃoɾ]Category:Spanish 2-syllable words#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish terms with IPA pronunciation#OFFSHORE
• IPA^(key): (chiefly Spain) /ofˈsoɾ/ [ofˈsoɾ]Category:Spanish 2-syllable words#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish terms with IPA pronunciation#OFFSHORE
• Rhymes: -oɾCategory:Rhymes:Spanish/oɾ#OFFSHORECategory:Rhymes:Spanish/oɾ/2 syllables#OFFSHORE
• Syllabification: off‧shore

Adjective

offshore (invariable)Category:Spanish lemmas#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish adjectives#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish terms spelled with SH#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish indeclinable adjectives#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish entries with incorrect language header#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with entries#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with 5 entries#OFFSHORE

1. offshore

Noun

offshore f (plural offshores)Category:Spanish lemmas#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish nouns#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish terms spelled with SH#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish countable nouns#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish entries with incorrect language header#OFFSHORECategory:Spanish feminine nouns#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with entries#OFFSHORECategory:Pages with 5 entries#OFFSHORE

1. offshore, offshore company

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Further reading

• Seco, Manuel; Andrés, Olimpia; Ramos, Gabino (2023), “offshore”, in Diccionario del español actual (in Spanish), third digital edition, Fundación BBVA