Definition 1: To outsource or subcontract a high-paying job overseas to a less developed country where wages are significantly lower.

Usage 1: The adjective "offshore" usually means in the ocean, away from the shore, as an offshore oil drilling rig or an offshore bank account located on an island. It is a poor candidate for the meaning it has picked up recently; the phrase "outsource overseas" is more precise. To "overseas" would be the best word but that final –s is a plural marker and the verbal suffixes, -s, -ed, -ing, cannot be added to plural suffixes.

Suggested usage: Since the adjective is being used widely as a verb meaning "outsource overseas," we want you to be prepared for it: "US computer programmers are complaining that their jobs are being offshored to programmers in India, China, and Pakistan." Companies turn to offshoring as a means of reducing costs while increasing productivity, "Our personnel manager, Gladys Friday, offshored all the jobs in our company except her own and those of top management."

Etymology: "Shore" is the modern form of Old English skora "shore, beach." It derives from the Proto-Indo-European form, *(s)ker-, with another of those [s]s that come and go under mysterious circumstances. Since the [k] becomes [gh] or just [h] in English, it also gives us "shear" and "share." "Score," in the sense of cutting a mark into something, was borrowed from Old Norse. With a suffix [t] the same root emerged as English "short" and Latin "curtus" with the same meaning.