“Offense” or “Offence”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 2 prefer “offense” and 9 prefer “offence”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	offense	offence	Preference
United States	90	10	“offense”
United Kingdom	10	90	“offence”
India	16	84	“offence”
Philippines	87	13	“offense”
Canada	36	64	“offence”
Australia	16	84	“offence”
Liberia	0	0	Not enough data
Ireland	18	82	“offence”
New Zealand	18	82	“offence”
Jamaica	45	55	“offence”
Trinidad & Tobago	34	66	“offence”
Guyana	40	60	“offence”

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“offense”

…use Chandler more in the offense, as Chandler was a starter…
…of aiding and abetting an offense even if the principal is…
The offense can be punished by fines…
…in on both defense and offense.
…makes the wishbone a "complete" offense.
78th Grey Cup MVP on Offense.
…is considered a strict liability offense.
…his second Honorable Mention for offense.
…season it was the Duck offense that led Oregon to a…
…pre-empt the episode to prevent offense.

“offence”

…the person's race) was an offence, carrying a fine of between…
In the offence under section 20 of the…
…1977 and refer to the offence that that section creates.
…was never charged with any offence.
…been acquitted of a similar offence threatened to sue Grundy's, claiming…
…also argues that the phrase "offence, which, if committed within the…
…nature of the "deeply unpleasant offence".
…committed a lesser drug testing offence and as a result escaped…
…frenzy about details of Hageman's offence, two contestants that had not…
…the circumstances of the alleged offence.

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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