賣票的那個窗口
這一族就是畫面本身：一個走得過去、排得到隊的地方。
noun · B1
The place in a theatre, cinema, concert hall or sports ground where tickets are sold — usually a small window or counter near the entrance, where you can also pick up tickets you have already paid for.
售票處
核心畫面
Picture a small lit window beside the doors of a theatre, with a queue in front of it and a drawer of money behind it. Everyone who wants to get in has to stop at that window first. One way to hold the whole phrase is to stand at that window and look in three directions: at the window itself, at the money piling up inside it, and at whatever it is out on the stage that makes the queue long in the first place.
「box office」可以想成劇院大門旁邊那個亮著燈的小窗口：前面排著隊，後面放著錢。想進場的人都得先在那裡停一下…更多收起
「box office」可以想成劇院大門旁邊那個亮著燈的小窗口：前面排著隊，後面放著錢。想進場的人都得先在那裡停一下。整個詞的三個意思，就像站在那個窗口往三個方向看：看窗口本身、看窗口裡越疊越高的錢、再看台上到底有什麼東西，讓外面那條隊伍排這麼長。From the word’s history
Wiktionary dates the phrase to 1786 and says it presumably comes from the sale of boxes, that is box seats, the separated private seating in a theatre. The sense of total ticket sales is dated to 1904. Wiktionary also records, and rejects, the popular story that the phrase comes from Elizabethan theatres collecting admission in a box on a stick: the term is first attested more than a century after those theatres closed in 1642.
Wiktionary 記載這個詞大約在 1786 年出現，很可能來自賣「box」也就是劇院包廂座位的地方；「總票房」那個意思要到 1904 年才出現。另外有一個流傳很廣的說法，講它來自伊莉莎白時代拿著錢箱收門票的做法，Wiktionary 認為不可信：當時的劇院在 1642 年就關了，而這個詞要一百多年後才有紀錄。
Wiktionary, 'box office' etymology text supplied in the 2026-09-11 evidence packet (kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1142540736)
Two branches
窗口收到的成績與拉人的本事
視線從窗口移到窗口裡的錢，再移到讓錢進來的原因。畫面沒換，只是越站越遠。
noun · B2
The money a film, play or performer takes from ticket sales, used as the usual way of saying how successful they are: how many people paid to see them, and how much that added up to.
票房
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
box officenoun/ˈbɒksˌɒfɪs/
- 1
broadcastingentertainmentfilmA place where tickets are sold in a theatre/theater or cinema.
- The movie tanked at the box office.
- 2
broadcastingfilmmediaThe 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.
- 3
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.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。