Noun

(en noun)

A building or room where clerical or professional duties are performed.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=2 , passage=We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect of so large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.}}

*

*:There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry, with futile energy, from place to place. Pushing men hustle each other at the windows of the purser's office , under pretence of expecting letters or despatching telegrams.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Revenge of the nerds , passage=Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.}}

A bureau, an administrative unit of government.

A position of responsibility of some authority within an organisation.

:

A charge or trust; a function.

*(Bible), (w) xi. 13

*:Inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office .

*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

*:They [the eyes] resign their office and their light.

*(John Milton) (1608-1674)

*:Hesperus, whose office is to bring / Twilight upon the earth.

*(Isaac Newton) (1642-1727)

*:In this experiment the several intervals of the teeth of the comb do the office of so many prisms.

Rite, ceremonial observance of social or religious nature.

Religious service, especially a liturgy officiated by a Christian priest or minister.

*(John Evelyn) (1620-1706)

*:This morning was read in the church, after the office was done, the declaration setting forth the late conspiracy against the king's person.

A 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.

(lb) That which a person does, either voluntarily or by appointment, for, or with reference to, others; customary duty, or a duty that arises from human relations.

:

*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

*:I would I could do a good office between you.

*Doctrine and Covenants 25: 5 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah 1981

*:

*1813 , (Jane Austen), (Pride and Prejudice) , Modern Library Edition (1995), p.144

*:there I readily engaged in the office of pointing out to my friend the certain evils of such a choice.

(lb) The parts of a house given over to household work, storage etc.

*(Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)

*:As for the offices , let them stand at distance.

*1887 , Sir (Arthur Conan Doyle), (A Study in Scarlet) , III:

*:A short passage, bare planked and dusty, led to the kitchen and offices .

An office suite; a collection of work?related computer programs (shortened from several such suites with 'office' in their name).

Noun

(en noun)

The way in which something is positioned vis-à-vis its surroundings.

* 1908 , (Kenneth Grahame), (The Wind in the Willows) :

...he being naturally an underground animal by birth and breeding, the situation of Badger's house exactly suited him and made him feel at home; while the Rat, who slept every night in a bedroom the windows of which opened on a breezy river, naturally felt the atmosphere still and oppressive.

The place in which something is situated; a location.

* 1833 , Thomas Hibbert and Robert Buist, The American Flower Garden Directory , page 142:

[Hibíscus] speciòsus is the most splendid, and deserves a situation in every garden.

Position or status with regard to conditions and circumstances.

The combination of circumstances at a given moment; a state of affairs.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=Then we relapsed into a discomfited silence, and wished we were anywhere else. But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, and with such a hearty enjoyment that instead of getting angry and more mortified we began to laugh ourselves, and instantly felt better.}}

(UK, dated) A position of employment; a post.

* 1913 , , (Sons and Lovers) , Penguin 2006, page 78:

When he was nineteen, he suddenly left the 'Co-op' office, and got a situation in Nottingham.

* 1946 , Vaughn Horton, Denver Darling, Milt Gabler, :

You take a morning paper from the top of the stack

And read the situations from the front to the back

The only job that's open need a man with a knack

So put it right back in the rack Jack.

A difficult or unpleasant set of circumstances; a problem.

Boss, we've got a situation here...