Office
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /ˈɒfɪs/
- US IPA: /ˈɔfɪs/
- Hyphenation: of + fice
- Rhymes: -ɒfɪs
Origin
From Anglo-Norman office, offis etc., and Old French office, from Latin officium ("task, business, duty, official duty, office, court"), probably a contraction of opificium ("the doing of a work, a working"), from opifex ("one who does a work"), from opus ("work") + facere ("to do").
Full definition of office
Noun
office
(plural offices)- A building or room where clerical or professional duties are performed.
- 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 2, We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect of so large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.
- 2013-08-03, Revenge of the nerds, Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.
- A bureau, an administrative unit of government.
- A position of responsibility of some authority within an organisation.an executive or judical office; a municipal office
- A charge or trust; a function.
- Bible, Rom. xi. 13Inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office.
- ShakespeareThey eyes resign their office and their light.
- MiltonHesperus, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth. - Isaac NewtonIn this experiment the several intervals of the teeth of the comb do the office of so many prisms.
- Rite, ceremonial observance of social or religious nature.
- Religious service, especially a liturgy officiated by a Christian priest or minister
- EvelynThis morning was read in the church, after the office was done, the declaration setting forth the late conspiracy against the king's person.
- A major administrative division, notably in certain governmental administrations, either at ministry level (e.g. the British Home Office) or within or dependent on such a department.
- (obsolete) That which a person does, either voluntarily or by appointment, for, or with reference to, others; customary duty, or a duty that arises from human relations.kind offices, pious offices
- ShakespeareI would I could do a good office between you.
- Doctrine and Covenants 25: 5 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah 1981...the office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant...
- 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Modern Library Edition (1995), page 144...there I readily engaged in the office of pointing out to my friend the certain evils of such a choice.
- (in the plural) The parts of a house given over to household work, storage etc.
- Francis BaconAs for the offices, let them stand at distance.
- 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, III:A short passage, bare planked and dusty, led to the kitchen and offices.
- An office suite; a collection of workâ€related computer programs (shortened from several such suites with 'office' in their name)).