Instead of having an AC signal with zero crossing at 0 volts, shift it to whatever the DC level is. That is a description of an AC signal riding on a DC one.If you think about it, there is always a DC component. Whatever the zero crossing average is, that's the DC value. If it is exactly the same as your reference, then you might consider it to have no DC component, or zero volts. But if you reference it to something else, there may be some DC offset.