offset

Definitions

• Anything that acts as counterbalance; a compensating equivalent.
• (international trade) 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.
• (obsolete) A time at which something begins; outset.
• (printing) The offset printing process, in which ink is carried from a metal plate to a rubber blanket and from there to the printing surface.
• (programming) The difference between a target memory address and a base address.
• (signal analysis) The displacement between the base level of a measurement and the signal's real base level.
• The distance by which one thing is out of alignment with another.
• (surveying) 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.
• (botany) A short prostrate shoot that takes root and produces a tuft of leaves, etc.
• A spur from a range of hills or mountains.
• (architecture) 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.
• (architecture) A terrace on a hillside.