to offset

Offset means “balanced” or “cancelled out” by something else. This is especially important in finance, management etc and as a part of any evaluation of advantages and disadvantages. So, it’s a useful in many of the assignments  you have to do here. You can say, for instance, that negative effects in one area are offset by positive effects in another. But if positive effects are completely cancelled out by negative ones, it's better to use 'negate'.

The lower salaries in the suburbs are offset by the much lower cost of living.

more example sentences        questions for personal practice        unit 3       exercise 12.1     exercise 12.6

[ Home ] [ Up ]

to negate / negation

When something is negated, it’s cancelled out – in other words, its value is reduced to nothing. So a person’s good qualities can be negated by their faults. Or the value of something can be negated by other factors which make it seem less important.

The positive benefits of the drug were negated by its unfortunate addictive qualities.

[ Home ] [ Up ]