office

The story

1. Latin · derived fromofficium“personal, official, or moral duty; official position; function; ceremony, esp. last rites”
2. Old French · derived fromoffice
3. Middle English · inherited fromoffice
4. English todayoffice

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.

Words from the same roots