offshore

Alternative forms

• off-shore

Etymology

From off- +‎ shore.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɒfˈʃɔː(ɹ)/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)

Adjective

offshore (not comparable)

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

   an offshore oil rig

   • 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.

   • 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 2020-12-22:

     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.

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 2018-02-03:

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

   • 2009 October 3, Landon Thomas Jr, “Offshore Haven Considers a Heresy: Taxation”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN, archived from the original on 2018-09-27:

     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.

   • 2009 December 18, “Guantánamo Must Be Closed”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN, archived from the original on 2020-10-27:

     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.

   • 2016 May 23, Roger Cohen, “Australia’s Offshore Cruelty”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN, archived from the original on 2018-10-21:

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

Adverb

offshore (not comparable)

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)

1. (transitive) 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.

   • 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.

   • 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.

Noun

offshore (plural offshores)

1. An area or 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.

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.

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.

   • 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.

See also

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

Alternative forms

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

Etymology

Borrowed from English offshore.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɔf.ʃɔʁ/

Adjective

offshore (plural offshores)

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

Etymology

From English.

Adjective

offshore (indeclinable)

1. offshore

References

• “offshore” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Etymology

From English.

Adjective

offshore (indeclinable)

1. offshore

References

• “offshore” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ofˈʃoɾ/ [ofˈʃoɾ]
• IPA^(key): (chiefly Spain) /ofˈsoɾ/ [ofˈsoɾ]
• Rhymes: -oɾ
• Syllabification: off‧shore

Adjective

offshore (invariable)

1. offshore

Noun

offshore f (plural offshores)

1. offshore, offshore company