offshooting

English

Noun

offshooting (plural offshootings)

1. An offshoot; a diversion or branching off.
   • 1852, Herman Melville, Pierre; or, The Ambiguities:

     I must be shorter; I did not mean to turn off into the mere offshootings of my story, here and there; but the dreaminess I speak of leads me sometimes; and I, as impotent then, obey the dreamy prompting.

   • 1869, William Conant Church, The Galaxy, volume 7, page 103:

     At the first offshooting of the English language from its present stem, its growth and development began at once to tend toward logical simplicity […]

Anagrams

• shooting off