Office (noun) — (1) a room or building used for professional or administrative work; (2) a position of authority or public responsibility; (3) a government department or agency. Example: She learned a lot of business vocabulary when she started working in an office.
What Does Office Mean?
Office comes from the Latin officium, meaning "duty" or "service" (from opus, work, and facere, to do). It entered Middle English via Old French office in the 13th century. The same Latin root gives us officer, official, officiate, and the adjective officious — all connected to the idea of performing a duty or function.
In everyday modern English, the most common meaning is the physical workspace: the room or building where people do desk-based work. This is the sense learners encounter first, typically at A2 level. The second sense — a position of authority, as in "holding office" or "taking office" — is B2 level and appears most often in political and formal contexts. The third sense, a named government department (the Home Office, the Foreign Office), is also B2–C1.
Note that in British English a doctor's consulting room is called a surgery, not an office. American English uses doctor's office for the same place. Keep this distinction in mind when reading texts from both varieties of English.
Example Sentences
| Sentence | Level & usage note |
|---|---|
| My mum works in a big office in the city centre. | A2 — office as a physical workspace |
| She learned a lot of business vocabulary when she started working in an office. | B1 — office in a professional/career context |
| The head office of the company is located in Edinburgh. | B1 — compound noun: head office |
| The senator held office for nearly two decades before retiring from politics. | B2 — office as a position of authority |
| The inquiry was referred to the Home Office, which oversees immigration and national security. | C1 — office as a named government department |
Collocations
| Collocation | Example |
|---|---|
| head office | All major decisions are made at the head office in London. |
| home office | She has set up a home office in the spare bedroom. |
| office hours | Please contact us during office hours, 9 am to 5 pm. |
| office worker | Most office workers spend several hours a day at a computer. |
| open-plan office | The new open-plan office encourages collaboration between teams. |
| post office | I need to go to the post office to send this parcel. |
| take office | The new president will take office in January. |
| leave office | The prime minister announced she would leave office after the vote. |
| office block | A modern glass office block now stands where the factory used to be. |
| office politics | He tried to avoid office politics and focus on his work. |
Usage Notes
Three Meanings — Three Contexts
- Physical space: Use office with articles and adjectives as you would any countable noun — an office, the office, a small office. You go to the office and work in the office.
- Position of authority: This sense is usually uncountable and used without an article in fixed phrases: hold office, take office, leave office, be in office, run for office.
- Government department: Written with a capital letter when it is a proper name: the Home Office, the Foreign Office, the Cabinet Office.
Common Mistakes
Watch Out For
I go to office every day at nine o'clock.
I go to the office every day at nine o'clock. (the definite article is needed for a specific workplace)
She is in the office of president since 2022.
She has been in office since 2022. (the political sense uses in office without an article)
He works at an office work.
He does office work. / He works in an office. (office is a noun modifier here, not a standalone phrase)