Offer

A proposal to enter into certain arrangements, usually accompanied by an expected acceptance. For example, an offer to purchase a house for $50,000.

A proposition to do a thing.

An offer ought to contain a right, if accepted, of compelling the fulfilment of the contract and this right when not expressed is always implied.

By virtue of his natural liberty, a man may change his will at any time, if it is not to the injury of another; he may, therefore, revoke or recall his offers, at any time before they have been accepted; and in order to deprive him of this right the offer must have been accepted on the terms in which it was made.

Any qualification of, or departure from those terms, invalidates the offer unless the same be agreed to by the party who made it.

When the offer has been made, the party is presumed to be willing to enter into the contract for the time limited, and if the time be not fixed by the offer, then until it be expressly revoked or rendered nugatory by a contrary presumption.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.

A explicit proposal to contract which, if accepted, completes the contract and binds both the person that made the offer and the person accepting the offer to the terms of the contract. - (read more on Offer)