office-house

English

Alternative forms

• officehouse

Noun

office-house (plural office-houses)

1. (obsolete) A building or outhouse on a farm, estate, manor, palace, etc. used for household work, storage, housing servants, etc; the office of the steward or bailiff on a manor or estate; a house of office.
   • 1827, Thomas Carlyle, Ludwig Tieck's "The Elves":

     That gloomy spot they spoke of lay aside from the hamlet. In a dell, begirt with firs, you might behold a hut, and various ruined office-houses.

   • 1632, William Lithgow, The Totall Discourse of the Rare Adventures and Painefull Peregrinations of Long Nineteen Yeares Travayles, section 10.444:

     This Pallace ... hath neither outward walles nor gates ... save onely some office houses without.

Usage notes

• In later use, only in the plural.

References

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “office-house”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.