offshoot

From off- + shoot.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɔf.ʃuːt/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɒf.ʃuːt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

offshoot (plural offshoots)

1. Something which shoots off or separates from a main stem or branch of a plant.

   the offshoots of a tree

2. Something which develops from something else.

   an offshoot of a criminal organization

   • 1945 September and October, “Notes and News: The "Berks & Hants" Line”, in Railway Magazine, page 299:

     The reason is that the Berks & Hants Railway Company, under the powers of which the line was built, also included the Reading-Basingstoke section. The company was an offshoot of the G.W.R., which absorbed it before any section was opened.

• spin-off/spinoff

• “offshoot”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “offshoot”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• shoot off