out-of-office

English

Etymology

From out of office.

Noun

out-of-office (plural out-of-offices)

1. (Internet) An email auto-reply informing people that the person they are trying to contact is not working and unavailable for an extended period of time.
   • 2015 August 27, Emily Gould, “The Art of the Out-of-Office Reply”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     There are poetic out-of-offices and humorous (or supposedly humorous) out-of-offices. There are out-of-offices that boast or complain about the person’s likely whereabouts (Bali! Jury duty.).

   • 2023 August 7, Emma Beddington, “Email makes my fingers tingle and my stomach drop with dread. Can’t we go back to pigeons?”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     That doesn’t happen in even the most enlightened workplaces, but nothing makes me feel more patriotic than emailing a French company in summer, getting an out-of-office that sends me to someone else, that person also being en vacances and suggesting a third, whose out-of-office directs me back to the first person.