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‘ […] I remember a lady coming to inspect St. Mary's Home where I was brought up and seeing us all in our lovely Elizabethan uniforms we were so proud of, and bursting into tears all over us because “it was wicked to dress us like charity children”. We nearly crowned her we were so offended. She saw us but she didn't know us, did she?’.
1995 September, “The Playboy Interview: Cindy Crawford”, in Playboy:
One day my girlfriend, her boyfriend and I were sunbathing topless because that's Barbados - you can wear nothing if you want. And the Pepsi guy walks up and with my agent to meet us for lunch. I wondered if I should put on my top because I have a business relationship with him. I didn't want him to get offended because the rest of the beach had seen me with my top off.
c.1527–1542, Thomas Wyatt, “Som fowles there be that have so perfaict ſight”, in Egerton MS 2711, page 19v:
Som fowles there be that have so perfaict ſight Agayn the Sonne their Iyes for to defend And ſom bicauſe the light doeth theim offend Do never pere but in the darke or nyght
Physically enjoyable frivolity can still offend the conscience
(intransitive) To sin, transgress divine law or moral rules.
1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Cure of Deſpaire by Phyſick, good counſell, comforts, &c.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy., 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 3, section 4, member 3, subsection 6, page 707:
I dailie and hourelie offend in thought, word, and deed, in a relapſe by mine owne weakneſſe and wilfulneſſe, my bonus Genius, my good protecting angel is gone, I am falne from that I was, or would bee, worſe and worſe, […]
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