In accounts, a sum, account, or value set off against another sum or account, as an equivalent.--Webster.
This word is generally used in place of the English term set-off. Mr. Pickering says, "it is also very common in popular language, in the sense of an equivalent. None of the English dictionaries have the word in any sense except that of "shoot from a plant."
He avoided giving offence to any of the numerous offsets of Presbyterianism.--Lond. Quart. Rev., Vol. X. p. 498.
The expense or the frigates had been strongly urged; but the saving in insurance, in ships and cargoes, and the ransom of seamen, was more than an offset against this item.--Marshall's Washington.
Thanksgiving was an anti-Christmas festival, established as a kind of offset to that.--Margaret, p. 61.
TO OFFSET
To set one account against another; to make the account of one party pay the demand of another.--Webster.