office

office of‧fice [ˈɒfs ǁ ˈɒː-, ˈɑː-] noun

1. [countable] a room or building where people work at desks:

• The agency recently closed its Houston office.

• I'd like to see you in my office.

• I applied for the job of office manager.

• There is a shortage of low-cost office space.

• I work in a large open-plan office (= an office without any walls dividing it into separate rooms ) .

ˈassay ˌoffice [countable]

an office in Britain where gold and silver objects are officially marked to show how pure the metal they are made of is

ˌback ˈoffice [singular]

FINANCE the department of a financial institution that does work connected with managing and organizing the work of the institution, rather than the actual work of trading, working with clients etc:

• Back office problems led to a suspension of trading.

ˈbranch ˌoffice [countable]

a local office of a company, usually in a different town or city to the company's main office:

• Its head office is in Berlin, and it has 15 branch offices across Germany.

exˈchange ˌoffice [countable] FINANCE

a place where you can change currencies, but which does not offer other banking services:

• The decision allows commercial banks and tourism companies to set up exchange offices.

ˌfront ˈoffice [countable]

the department in companies, especially financial institutions, that deals directly with clients rather than administrative activities:

• He has been appointed to the front office staff as a senior consultant, with responsibility for foreign exchange trading and sales.

ˌhead ˈoffice also ˌmain ˈoffice

1. [countable, uncountable] the main office of a company:

• There is a customer liaison department at head office.

• New York used to house the main offices of hundreds of top companies.

2. [uncountable] the managers who work at the main office of a company:

• Most of the important decisions are made by head office.

ˌhome ˈoffice

[countable] another name for small

ˈland ˌoffice

[countable] PROPERTY a government office in the US that records sales of public land:

• the Texas General Land Office

reˈceiving ˌoffice

[countable] TRANSPORT the part of a company where goods are received and checked

ˌregistered ˈoffice [countable]

in Britain, the official address of a company where all letters and notices must be sent. By law, every British company must have a registered office and the Registrar of Companies must be given the address:

• The address of our registered office is printed at the head of this letter.

ˈsales ˌoffice [countable] MARKETING

an office belonging to a company that sells the company's products in a particular area:

• The company has regional sales offices in several US states.

ˈsatellite ˌoffice [countable]

an office that is part of a larger organization and is some distance away from the main office which controls it:

• The firm, which is based in Los Angeles, recently opened up satellite offices in New York and Dallas.

ˌsmall ˌoffice/​ˈhome ˌoffice written abbreviation SOHO [countable]

a room in someone's home where they work, which usually has equipment such as a computer

ˈsorting ˌoffice [countable]

a place where letters and packages that have been collected from post boxes are put into groups according to where they have to be delivered

staˈtistical ˌoffice [countable] ECONOMICS STATISTICS ORGANIZATIONS

an organization responsible for collecting detailed information about a country's economy and arranging it in tables of numbers

ˈtourist ˌoffice also ˌtourist inforˈmation ˌoffice TRAVEL ORGANIZATIONS [countable]

an office that gives information to tourists in an area about where to stay, what to see etc:

• You can find out more about places to visit at the tourist office.

2. do a land office business informal COMMERCE to do a lot of business and make a lot of money:

• The conference organizers did a land office business at first, but now watch people go to competitors' events.

3. [countable] COMMERCE a room or building where people can go to buy tickets or get information, or for some other service:

• Information leaflets are available from the enquiry office.

• The woman in the ticket office said there would be a train in five minutes.

• the Opera House booking office

ˈbox ˌoffice

1. [countable] COMMERCE the place at a cinema or theatre where people can buy tickets

2. [singular] if a film or show does well at the box office, it sells a lot of tickets and so makes a lot of money:

• The thriller was a hit at the box office.

• The group is suffering after a series of box-office flops.

4. [uncountable] JOBS an important job or position, especially in a government:

• He is determined to stay in office until the end of the year.

• When hetook office, inflation was running at 84%.

5. Office ORGANIZATIONS used in the names of some British government departments and organizations:

• the Foreign Office

* * *

Office

► GOVERNMENT a department of the national government, or an official government organization: »

the Home Office

»

the Foreign Office

»

the Office of Fair Trading

»

the Office of Thrift Supervision

Main Entry: ↑office