offshoreadj/ɒfˈʃɔː(ɹ)/

• 1

  Moving away from the shore.

• 2

  Located in the sea away from the coast.

  • an offshore oil rig
  • Since 1949, Taiwan has remained under Nationalist (Kuomintang) control along with the off-shore islands of Chin-men (Kinmen) and Ma-tsu (Lien-chiang County) in Fujian Province. Chin-men and Lien-chiang County are to end their period of direct military rule and to elect their first country magistrates in 1993.
• 3

  Located in another country, especially one having beneficial tax laws or labor costs.

  • American companies use offshore services for one reason, said Herbert F. Schantz, a consultant in Sterling, Va.: cheap labor.
  • With pressure building in Europe and the United States for a systemwide crackdown on offshore tax havens —the Caymans prefer to call themselves a tax-neutral portal Britain appears determined to make an example of a place that has become a symbol of secrecy and intrigue.

offshoreadv/ɒfˈʃɔː(ɹ)/

• 1

  Away from the shore.

• 2

  At some distance from the shore.

offshoreverb/ɒfˈʃɔː(ɹ)/

• 1

  To move industrial production from one region to another or from one country to another, in order to seek lower business costs, such as labor.

  • The McKinsey Global Institute says that 750,000 American service jobs have been “offshored” out of total U.S. jobs of about 140 million.
  • India has become the leading destination for offshored services.

offshorenoun/ɒfˈʃɔː(ɹ)/

• 1

  An area of or portion of sea away from the shore.

  • This problem, so far as the offshores of the United States is concerned, is one that is eminently worthy of the attention of the United States Fish Commission and the support of Congress in its attempt to solve it.
• 2

  An island, outcrop, or other land away from shore.

  • The Nationalists see that they have nothing to gain—in fact, a lot to lose—by hanging onto the offshores as military bases.
• 3

  Something or someone in, from, or associated with another country.

  • If costs are unequally imposed by governments on their offshores, the government makes the U.S. banking industry less competitive.
  • Though American legislators renewed restrictive immigration policies in the two decades after the war, they allowed employers of farmworkers to import some 4.5 million Mexican "braceros" and Caribbean "offshores," as the workers were called.