offset

1. Anything that acts as counterbalance; a compensating equivalent. · Today's victory was an offset to yesterday's defeat.
2. 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.
3. A time at which something begins; outset.
4. 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· offset process
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. A short distance measured at right angles from a line actually run to some point in an irregular boundary, or to some object.

Plural offsets