English
offer
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈɒfə(ɹ)/, /ˈɔːfə(ɹ)/
  • (America) IPA: /ˈɔfɚ/
  • (cot-caught, Canada) IPA: /ˈɑfɚ/
Noun

offer (plural offers)

  1. A proposal that has been made.
    What's in his offer?
    I decline your offer to contract.
  2. Something put forth, bid, proffered or tendered.
    His offer was $3.50 per share.
  3. (legal) An invitation to enter into a binding contract communicated to another party which contains terms sufficiently definite to create an enforceable contract if the other party accepts the invitation.
    His first letter was not a real offer, but an attempt to determine interest.
Translations Translations Translations Verb

offer (offers, present participle offering; past and past participle offered)

  1. (intransitive) To propose or express one's willingness (to do something).
    She offered to help with her homework.
  2. (transitive) To present in words; to proffer; to make a proposal of; to suggest.
    Everybody offered an opinion.
  3. (transitive) To place at someone’s disposal; to present (something) to be either accepted or turned down.
    He offered use of his car for the week.  He offered his good will for the Councilman's vote.
    • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314 ↗, page 0147 ↗:
      Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, […]. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either.
  4. (transitive) To present (something) to God or gods as a gesture of worship, or for a sacrifice.
    • Bible, Book of Exodus xxix. 36
      Thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin offering for atonement.
  5. (transitive, engineering) To place (something) in a position where it can be added to an existing mechanical assembly.
  6. (transitive) To bid, as a price, reward, or wages.
    I offered twenty dollars for it. The company is offering a salary of £30,000 a year.
  7. (intransitive) To happen, to present itself.
    • The occasion offers, and the youth complies.
    • 1749, [John Cleland], “[Letter the First]”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume I, London: Printed [by Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], OCLC 731622352 ↗, page 72 ↗:
      The opportunity however did not offer till next morning, for Phœbe did not come to bed till long after I was gone to ſleep:
    • 1851 November 13, Herman Melville, chapter 2, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, OCLC 57395299 ↗:
      Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place would offer, till the following Monday.
  8. (obsolete) To make an attempt; typically used with at.
    • 1623, Francis Bacon, A Discourse of a War with Spain
      I will not offer at that I cannot master.
    • 1692, Roger L'Estrange, ''''
      He would be offering at the shepherd's voice.
    • 1712, Jonathan Swift, The Conduct of the Allies, and of the late Ministry, in beginning and carrying on the present War
      without offering at any other remedy
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
      Here Jones, after expressing the utmost uneasiness, offered to stop her mouth:—“Hey-day! why sure, Mr Jones, you will let me speak; I speaks no scandal, for I only says what I heard from others […]
  9. (transitive) To put in opposition to; to manifest in an offensive way; to threaten.
    to offer violence to somebody
Related terms Translations Translations Translations Noun

offer (plural offers)

  1. (used in combinations from phrasal verbs) agent noun of off


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