Meaning

• Anything that acts as counterbalance; a compensating equivalent.

  "Today's victory was an offset to yesterday's defeat."

• A form of countertrade arrangement, in which the seller agrees to purchase within a set time frame products of a certain value from the buying country. This kind of agreement may be used in large international public sector contracts such as arms sales.

• (c. 1555) A time at which something begins; outset.

• The offset printing process, in which ink is carried from a metal plate to a rubber blanket and from there to the printing surface.

  "offset lithographs"

• The difference between a target memory address and a base address.

  "An array of bytes uses its index as the offset, of words a multiple thereof."

• (signal analysis) The displacement between the base level of a measurement and the signal's real base level.

  "The raw signal data was subjected to a baseline correction process to subtract the sensor's offset and drift variations."

• The distance by which one thing is out of alignment with another.

  "There is a small offset between the switch and the indicator which some users found confusing."

• A short distance measured at right angles from a line actually run to some point in an irregular boundary, or to some object.

• An abrupt bend in an object, such as a rod, by which one part is turned aside out of line, but nearly parallel, with the rest; the part thus bent aside.

• A short prostrate shoot that takes root and produces a tuft of leaves, etc.

• A spur from a range of hills or mountains.

• A horizontal ledge on the face of a wall, formed by a diminution of its thickness, or by the weathering or upper surface of a part built out from it; a set-off.

• A terrace on a hillside.

Meaning

• To compensate for, by applying a change in the opposite direction.

  "I'll offset the time difference locally."

• To form an offset in (a wall, rod, pipe, etc.).