Homeoffice

What it means

1. 1.

   Working from home, as a state rather than a room: 'ich bin im Homeoffice' means 'I'm working from home today', not 'I am in my study'.

2. 2.

   A pseudo-anglicism. To a British reader the Home Office is a government ministry; to an American it is a company's headquarters. Neither is what a German means, and this causes real confusion in English-language emails from German colleagues.

Examples with translations

• Ich bin morgen im Homeoffice.

  I'm working from home tomorrow.

• Wir haben zwei Tage Homeoffice pro Woche.

  We get two work-from-home days a week.

Where it comes from

Assembled in German from English parts in the 1990s office-jargon wave that also produced Handy and Beamer. Marginal until 2020, when the pandemic made it one of the most-used nouns in the language almost overnight.

First attested: 1990s, in general use from 2020