ENGLISH
REFERENCE

office

n. countable
A1 Beginner Oxford US //ˈɔfɪs// UK //ˈɒfɪs// of·fice Archaic Dialect General-service Slang

n. a room or building where people work at desks. You usually find computers, phones, and chairs there for doing business or administrative tasks.

n. a room, set of rooms, or building used as a place for commercial, professional, or bureaucratic work.


SIMPLE

I work in a small office in the city center.

CONTEXTUAL

The company moved to a larger office because they hired ten new employees last month.

COMPLEX

While remote work has become increasingly popular, many corporations still maintain a central office to foster collaboration and provide a dedicated space for client meetings.

Synonyms
Origin

From Middle English office, from Old French office, from Latin officium (“personal, official, or moral duty; official position; function; ceremony, esp. last rites”), contracted from opificium (“construction: the act of building or the thing built”), from opifex (“doer of work, craftsman”) + -ium (“-y”, forming actions), from op- (“work”) + -i- (connective) + -fex (combining form of faciō (“to do, to make”)). The computing sense is a genericization of various proprietary program suites, such as Microsoft Office.

Usage

Often used with the preposition 'at' or 'in' to describe location.

Pitfall

I am going to officeI am going to the officeUnlike 'home' or 'work', 'office' almost always requires a determiner like 'the' or 'my'.

Idioms1 entry

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