office

Etymology

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- (“base of opus: work”) + -i- (“connective”) + -fex (“combining form of facere: to do, to make”). Use in reference to office software is a genericization of various proprietary program suites, such as Microsoft Office.

noun

1. (religion) A ceremonial duty or service
   1. (Christianity) The authorized form of ceremonial worship of a church.
   2. (Christianity) Any special liturgy, as the Office for the Dead or of the Virgin.
   3. (Christianity) A daily service without the eucharist.
   4. (Catholicism) The daily service of the breviary, the liturgy for each canonical hour, including psalms, collects, and lessons.
      In the Latin rite, all bishops, priests, and transitional deacons are obliged to recite the Divine Office daily.
      His spirituall exercises were chiefly Prayer, the H. Sacrifice of Masse, his Canonicall Houres or diuine Office. 1674, Richard Strange, The Life and Gests of S. Thomas Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford, page 287
   5. (Protestant) Various prayers used with modification as a morning or evening service">service.
   6. (Christianity) Last rites.
      To show their loue in this last office done To a dead friend. 1618, S. Rowlands, Sacred Memorie, section 37
   7. (Christianity, obsolete) Mass, (particularly) the introit sung at its beginning.
      The office, or Introite, (as they call it). 1549, “Svpper of the Lorde”, in The Book of Common Prayer, page 121
2. A position of responsibility.
   When the office of Secretary of State is vacant, its duties fall upon an official within the department.
   I do solemnly swear... that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." 1787, United States Constitution, Article II, §1
3. Official position, particularly high employment within government; tenure in such a position.
   She held office as secretary of state until she left office to run for office.
   The Tories had been in office ten years. 1923, Rose Macaulay, Told by an Idiot, act III, scene xv, line 227
4. A duty, particularly owing to one's position or station; a charge, trust, or role; (obsolete, rare) moral duty.
5. (archaic) Function: anything typically done by or expected of something.
   These ‘Pacific boom-lateens’... are believed to derive from a kind of sprit-sail... in which the upper sprit performs the office of a more or less aft-raking mast. 1971, John Needham, chapter III, in Science and Civilisation in China, page 590
   The anxious businessman will learn that in most of Southeast Asia,... presenting your business card with your left hand is an affront, every decent Moslem knowing the filthy, smelly offices you reserve that left hand for. 1988, P. Fussell, Thank God for Atom Bomb, page 134
6. (now usually in plural) A service, a kindness.
   The secretary prevailed at the negotiations through the good offices of the Freedonian ambassador.
   ...which we have hitherto forborne to graunt... for the evell offices whiche her other Secretary did there. 1575, Elizabeth I, letter
   And the office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness. 1830, Joseph Smith, Doctrine and Covenants, 25:5
7. (figurative, slang) Inside information.
   Giving the office—is when you suffer any person, who may stand behind your chair, to look over your hand. 1803, Sporting Magazine, number 21, page 327
8. A room, set of rooms, or building used for non-manual work
   1. A room, set of rooms, or building used for administration and bookkeeping.
   2. A room, set of rooms, or building used for selling services or tickets to the public.
      There will be some of the family waiting for you at the coach-office. 1819 September 22, John Keats, letter to Reynolds
   3. (chiefly US, medicine) A room, set of rooms, or building used for consultation and diagnosis, but not surgery or other major procedures.
      This one was made out at a private office—Office is American for Surgery. 1975, M. Duke, chapter VIII, in Death of Holy Murderer, page 108
9. (figurative) The staff of such places.
   The whole office was there... well, except you, of course.
10. (figurative, in large organizations) The administrative departments housed in such places
    1. (UK, Australia, usually capitalized, with clarifying modifier) A ministry or other department of government.
       The secretary of state's British colleague heads the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
    2. (Catholicism, usually capitalized) Short for Holy Office: the court of final appeal in cases of heresy.
       A Biscayner is capable to be a Cavalier of any of the three habits without any scrutiny to be made of the Office, whether he be, limpio de la sangre de los Moros, that is cleare of the bloud of the Moores or no. 1642, J. Howell, chapter X, in Forraine Travell, page 131
       They abiured their Heresy bublikly [sic] before the Commissary of the holy office. 1658, Pilgrim's Book, page 3
    3. A particular place of business of a larger white-collar business.
       He worked as the receptionist at the Akron office.
       But there is an Insuring-Office set up in the Gospel, as to the venture of our eternities. 1647, W. Bridge, Saints Hiding-place, page 17
       Would not an Office of Insurance for Servants be of Service, and what Methods are proper for the erecting such an Office? 1732, Benjamin Franklin, Proposals & Queries to be Asked the Junto
11. (now in the plural, dated) The parts of a house or estate devoted to manual work and storage, as the kitchen, scullery, laundry, stables, etc., particularly (euphemistic, dated) a house or estate's facilities for urination and defecation: outhouses or lavatories.
    As for the Offices, let them stand at some Distance from the House, with some low covered Galleries, to pass from them to the Palace it self. 1720, William Willymott translating Francis Bacon as "Of Building" in Lord Bacons Essays, Vol. I, page 283
    ... proposals for erecting 500 Publick Offices of Ease in London and Westminster... 1727, The Grand Mystery
    A short passage, bare planked and dusty, led to the kitchen and offices. 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter III, in A Study in Scarlet
    Only in planted areas does one find old examples of planned ‘courtyard farms’ where the house and offices enclose a square or rectangular yard. 1957, Emyr Estyn Evans, chapter VIII, in Irish Folk Ways, page 112
    The bathroom's to the right and the usual offices next to it. 1957, John Braine, chapter I, in Room at Top, page 13
    Aft of the lobby... is the dining saloon for the passengers with the offices of necessity on either side of it. 1980, William Golding, chapter I, in Rites of Passage, page 6
12. (UK law, historical) Clipping of inquest of office: an inquest undertaken on occasions when the Crown claimed the right of possession to land or property.
    If they find the treason or felony... of the party accused... the king is thereupon, by virtue of this office found, intitled to have his forfeitures. 1768, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, volume III, page 259
    If the Crown claimed the land of an idiot, the person had first to be found an idiot by office. 1977, John McDonald Burke, Jowitt's Dictionary of English Law, volume I, page 280
13. (obsolete) A piece of land used for hunting; the area of land overseen by a gamekeeper.
    All hunt in James Whitendales office. 1617, Nicholas Assheton, Journal, page 60
14. (figurative, slang, obsolete) A hangout: a place where one is normally found.
    His Office, any Man's ordinary Haunt, or Plying-place, be it Tavern, Ale-house, Gaming-house. 1699, A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew
15. (UK military slang, dated) A plane's cockpit, particularly an observer's cockpit.
    I withdraw into ‘the office’, otherwise the observer's cockpit. 1917, Alan Bott, An Airman's Outings, page 161
    In the slang of the Royal Air Force man, the cockpit of his plane is the ‘pulpit’ or ‘office’, the glass covering over it the ‘greenhouse’. March 24 1941, Life, page 85
    ‘Up in the office they too knew it.’ ‘The office? You mean the flight deck?’ ‘Just that. No more. No less. The office.’ May 13 1966, New Statesman, page 687
16. (computing) A collection of business software typically including a word processor and spreadsheet and slideshow programs.
17. (obsolete) An official or group of officials; (figurative) a personification of officeholders.
18. (obsolete) A bodily function, (particularly) urination and defecation; an act of urination or defecation.
    Washing themselves, as they doe also after the offices of Nature. 1613, Samuel Purchas, Purchas, His Pilgrimage, page 623
    I never, since I left England, till now, have regal'd Myself with a good house of Office... the holes in Germany are... too round, chiefly owing... to the broader bottoms of the Germans. 1764 August 5, David Garrick, letter
19. (obsolete) The performance of a duty; an instance of performing a duty.

verb

1. To provide (someone) with an office.
   Is he officed in Congressional Relations or is he officed in SCA? 1966, United States. Congress. Senate, Hearings - Volume 8, page 451
   Prior to that time, Station personnel were first officed in temporary wartime barracks on the campus and then on the second floor of the Journalism Building. 1976, General Technical Report RM., page 128
2. (intransitive) To have an office.
   "I believed that Dave was just doing a favor for his brother," said Somerville, who added that he assumed Lou and Dave officed together. December 2, 1988, Grant Pick, “He Survived Operation Greylord”, in Chicago Reader