Literary notes about offset (AI summary)
The term "offset" in literature often conveys the idea of counterbalance or compensation. Authors use it to indicate that one aspect of a narrative or character trait serves to mitigate or neutralize another, such as when a personality quirk is counterbalanced by ambition or charm [1] or when a personal interest overcomes historical scarcity of value [2]. In other cases, "offset" describes physical displacements or misalignments, as when a window is set away from a wall [3] or when technical details, like a double offset bend, are specified to illustrate precise measurements [4]. This versatility spans both abstract and concrete contexts, highlighting contrasts or creating balance within a work.
- Surely this is an offset to any eccentricities to which I may have resorted to make my establishment widely known.
— from Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. Barnum by P. T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum - Its lack of value historically is more than offset by the personal interest of its characters and the many episodes of intense dramatic realism.
— from The Country of Sir Walter Scott by Charles S. (Charles Sumner) Olcott - At the other end of the porch, close under a window, was an offset between step and wall, and there in the shadow I hid.
— from The Rustlers of Pecos County by Zane Grey - At a is shown a double offset bend, the depth of which, for illustration, may be 1 ⁄ 2 inch.
— from Forge Work by William L. (William Lewis) Ilgen
