| 释义 |
box office, box-office
[box n.2 8 a.]
1. The office at which seats may be booked for a theatrical performance or other entertainment (orig. for the hiring of a box). Also attrib.
1786E. Sheridan Jrnl. (1960) 77 After we had nearly reach'd the Box Office a cry of Pick-pocket raised a general confusion. 1812Examiner 5 Oct. 631/2 Those who apply first for places at the Box-Office. 1812J. & H. Smith Rej. Addresses 74 Close to Mr. Spring's Box office door, I've stood and eye'd the builders. 1929J. B. Priestley Good Compan. ii. iv. 327 The box office was at the entrance to the Pier.
2. The financial element of such a performance; ellipt. or attrib. (and transf.), success(ful) in attracting or appealing to an audience; = draw n. 3; by extension, the paying audience.
1904G. B. Shaw Let. 6 Dec. (1956) 44, I dont want to sacrifice my aim to the box office. 1907Daily Chron. 16 May 3/5 The box-office value of every artist of prominence. 1923G. B. Shaw in Shaw on Theatre (1958) 163 All that Mr Bridges Adams can do is to pretend that the front of the existing stage is a forestage, and make the box office pretend. 1926Galsworthy Silver Spoon ii. viii. 183 ‘Don't know why he keeps on an amateur like that.’ ‘Box office, dear boy; she brings the smart people.’ 1932A. Huxley T. H. Huxley in Huxley Mem. Lectures 1925–32 17 This kind of popular science is thoroughly popular in the other, the box-office sense of the word. 1935Wodehouse Luck of Bodkins xxiv. 304 Exactly the touch the treatment needed to make it box-office. 1936Amer. Speech XI. 221 Our play may have turned out to be good ticket or good b[ox] o[ffice]. 1960Observer 11 Dec. 40/7 Mr. Khrushchev's box office performance at the United Nations. 1962Listener 8 Mar. 446/2 His canny equation of box-office and genuine artistic ambition. |