English Translation
No offense was meant.
Seems a cockeyed way to say, “Ich meinte keine Beleidigung”.
The english “to mean” and the german “meinen” don’t quite match.
“Meinen” does not take direct objects (except for “es” or “das”) the way “to mean” does, so a sentence like “I mean no harm” cannot be translated as “Ich meine keinen Schaden”.
English “to mean” is more like “to intend”, whereas “meinen” is more like “the meaning I want to express”, and so it almost always takes a phrase that expresses a “how”:
Das meine ich ernst. - I’m serious.
Das war nicht so gemeint. - That’s not how I wanted you to understand my words.
Es war nicht beleidigend gemeint. - I didn’t want you to interpret my words as an offense.
Also note that “meaning” and “Meinung” are false friends.
meaning - Bedeutung
opinion - Meinung
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You could alternatively say:
- Es war nicht als Beleidigung gemeint.
- Ich meinte es nicht als Beleidigung.
- Ich meinte es nicht beleidigend.
Your proposal “Ich meinte keine Beleidigung.” is not proper German, as @pitti42 explained.
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Maybe it helps to think of “meinen” as equivalent to “sagen”. Then the “how” makes more sense:
Ich meinte das nicht beleidigend. - I did not mean/say that insultingly.
(or: What I said was not meant to be insulting.)
Quite often it really is a replacement for “sagen”:
(see also meinen - Wiktionary, the free dictionary, meaning #2)
Ich habe ihn gestern gefragt, und er meinte, er hätte sie die ganze Woche nicht gesehen.
I asked him yesterday, and he said he hadn’t seen her the whole week.
And there is one usage that’s the same in english:
Siehst du die Frau da drüben? - Do you see the woman over there?
Welche meinst du? - Which one do you mean?
Ich meine die mit der roten Jacke. - I mean the one with the red jacket.
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