Meaning & use
box office
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Meanings
nouncountable
The place in a theater or cinema where tickets are sold.
Grammar: Countable: 'the box office' or 'box offices' in different buildings.
Patterns
- at the box office
- the box office opens/closes
Tickets are available at the box office until eight o'clock.
She waited by the box office for her friends to arrive.
noununcountable
The total amount of money a film or play earns from ticket sales.
Grammar: Uncountable in this sense: 'a box-office hit', not 'a box office'.
Patterns
- a box-office hit
- do well at the box office
- top the box office
The sequel broke box-office records in its first weekend.
Despite bad reviews, the comedy did well at the box office.
Word forms
| plural | box offices |
|---|
Common combinations
- box-office success
- The low-budget film became an unexpected box-office success.
- box-office receipts
- Box-office receipts were down compared with last year.
- at the box office
- You can buy tickets at the box office or online.
- a box-office flop
- The expensive musical was a box-office flop.
Synonyms and how they differ
- ticket office
- Means the same physical place, but is used more for trains, buses and events than for cinemas.
- takings
- Money received from sales generally; 'box office' is specifically about films and plays.
Word family
- box-office adjective
- Used before a noun: 'a box-office hit' means a film that sells many tickets.
Commonly confused: box office or box seat?
box office vs box seat
A seat in a small separate area of a theater, not the place where tickets are sold.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'box office' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Box-office' works as an adjective before a noun like 'success'. 'A box office' as a countable thing means the ticket counter, so option An and C are wrong.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “box office”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.