English

office

/ˈɒf.ɪs/
A ceremonial duty or service, particularly

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    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”)).

    In the religious sense, Displaced native Old English hād.

    The computing sense is a genericization of various proprietary program suites, such as Microsoft Office.

    From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

    Lineage

    • rootProto-Indo-European*h₃ep- “to work; produce in abundance”
    • inheritedMiddle Englishoffice
      • derivedOld Frenchoffice
        • derivedLatinofficium “personal, official, or moral duty; official position; function; ceremony, esp. last rites”

    Words built on it: official

    Sources