box office
nounUK /ˈbɒksˌɒfɪs/ · US /ˈbɑksˌɑfɪs/
Etymology 1786, presumably from sales of boxes, box seats (“separated private seating”). Sense of “total sales” from 1904. Folk etymology is that this derives from Elizabethan theatre, where theater admission was collected in a box attached to a long stick, passed around the audience. However, the term is first attested over a century later (theaters were closed in 1642), making this highly unlikely.
Broadcasting, Entertainment, Film, Lifestyle, Media, Television, Theater A place where tickets are sold in a theatre/theater or cinema.
- The movie tanked at the box office.
Broadcasting, Film, Media, Television Broadly The total amount of money paid by people worldwide to watch a movie at cinemas/movie theaters.
- box office receipts
- If any further insurance was required, the popularity of the three "Topper" films in the 1930s — based on Thorne Smith's characters — would seem to indicate that amusing ghosts made good box office.2005, Barry Day, Coward on Film: The Cinema of Noël Coward, page 88:
Quality of an entertainment or spectacle that makes it very popular with the public, or likely to be so.
- His performance last night was pure box office.
- A show that makes great box office.
- Derived terms
- box-office bomb, poison at the box office
- Related terms
- ticket office, booking office ticket window, cume, will call