Officer

How to spell officer

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce officer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does officer mean?

1. nounA person who holds a position of authority or command, especially in the police, armed forces, or a public body.
2. nounA person holding a senior position of responsibility within a company or organisation.

Officer in a sentence

• The police officer took a statement from each witness.

• The chief financial officer presented the annual results to the board.

• A senior army officer briefed the troops before the exercise.

• Every charity must appoint a compliance officer to oversee its records.

Where does officer come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin officium, meaning 'duty', 'service', or 'official position', which itself was built from opus 'work' and facere 'to do or make', so the literal idea was someone occupied with a piece of work or a public duty. Latin produced officiarius for a person holding an official charge, and this passed into Old French as officier before entering English in the 1300s. The earliest English sense was simply a person appointed to an office or duty, and only later did it narrow toward holders of military, naval, police, and government posts. The same officium root still surfaces in the everyday words 'office' and 'official', which is a useful reminder that the spelling keeps the doubled f and the soft c of its 'office' parent. Note that the ending is -cer, not -ser: the soft c that came straight from office is the main spelling trap.

How the word is built

• offic- (from Latin officium: duty, service)
• -er (noun suffix: one who performs)