Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not offending; not giving offense; not sinning; free from sin or fault; harmless; innocent; blameless.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Not offending.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective not causing anger or annoyance
  • adjective not offending

Etymologies

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Examples

  • SPEAKER, called unoffending Prince ARTHUR the "youthful STRAFFORD."

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, March 21, 1891 Various

  • Cruelty to the unoffending, that is what I mean by atrocities. "

    Young Hilda at the Wars Arthur Gleason 1900

  • The Ancient Mariner would shake his head sadly; and Daughtry, who likewise was hurt by the infliction of hurt on unoffending animals, would sympathize with him and fetch him unbidden another of the expensive three-for-a-dollar cigars so that his feelings might be soothed.

    CHAPTER XII 2010

  • She told him that he was no common bush-dog, but a blooded Irish gentleman, and that no dog that was a gentleman ever did such things as chase unoffending black men.

    CHAPTER XXIII 2010

  • The perpetrators were citizens living near the middle block-house, whose wives and children had been killed a few days before by the hostiles, but who well knew that these unoffending creatures had had nothing to do with those murders.

    She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories 2010

  • It is true the people at the Cascades had suffered much, and that their wives and children had been murdered before their eyes, but to wreak vengeance on Spencer's unoffending family, who had walked into their settlement under the protection of a friendly alliance, was an unparalleled outrage which nothing can justify or extenuate.

    She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories 2010

  • But like so many nominees before her, Kagan essentially dodged -- although in a very polite and unoffending way.

    Snapshots from the morning session of the Kagan hearings 2010

  • The stage driver encouraged them to make the unoffending animal “hump himself,” or take off running, and the brothers opened fire with their pistols.

    LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY JR. ROY MORRIS 2010

  • The stage driver encouraged them to make the unoffending animal “hump himself,” or take off running, and the brothers opened fire with their pistols.

    LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY JR. ROY MORRIS 2010

  • "Peaceable, unoffending colored men and boys were beaten up and murdered by brutes who boast of our white civilization."

    James Warren: This Week in Magazines: A Remarkably Resilient Progressive Turns 100, Eliot Spitzer Gropes to Turn a Corner 2009

Comments

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  • The antithesis of political speech and rhetoric, these days.

    March 18, 2011