Noun

Singular office

Plural offices

office (plural offices)

1. A building or room where clerical or professional duties are performed.
2. A bureau, an administrative unit of government.
3. A position of responsibility of some authority within an organisation.
4. (‘good offices’) Mediation or help in resolving a dispute.
   • The UN Secretary General uses what is termed his "good offices" (generally meaning his prestige and the weight of the world community he represents) when he meets with world leaders, either publicly or privately, in an effort to prevent international disputes from developing, escalating or spreading.
5. rite, ceremonial observance of social or religious nature
6. religious service, especially a liturgy officiated by a Christian priest or minister
7. 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
8. (obsolete) a task that one feels obliged to do
   • 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.

Derived terms

• office boy
• office mate
• post office
• box office
• ticket office
• paperless office
• home office
• doctor's office
• in office
• out of office

Related terms

• officer
• official
• officiate

An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it (see officer, office-holder, official); the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the term office may refer to business-related tasks. In legal writing, a company or organization has offices in any place that it has an official presence, even if that presence consists of, for example, a storage silo rather than an office.

An office is an architectural and design phenomenon and a social phenomenon, whether it is a tiny office such as a bench in the corner of a "Mom and Pop shop" of extremely small size (see small office/home office) through entire floors of buildings up to and including massive buildings dedicated entirely to one company. In modern terms an office usually refers to the location where white-collar workers are employed.