  Let $m\in \mathbb{N}$ and $\vec{b}=(b_{1},\cdots,b_{m})$ be a collection of
locally integrable functions. It is proved that $b_{1},b_{2},\cdots, b_{m}\in
BMO$ if and only if
$$\sup_{Q}\frac{1}{|Q|^{m}}\int_{Q^{m}}\Big|\sum_{i=1}^{m}\big(b_{i}(x_{i})-(b_{i})_{Q}\big)\Big|d\vec{x}<\infty,$$
where $(b_{i})_{Q}=\frac{1}{|Q|}\int_{Q}b_{i}(x)dx$. As an application, we show
that if the linear commutator of certain multilinear Calder\'{o}n-Zygmund
operator $[\Sigma \vec{b},T]$ is bounded from $L^{p_{1}}\times\cdots\times
L^{p_{m}}$ to $L^{p}$ with $\sum_{i=1}^{m}1/p_{i}=1/p$ and
$1<p,p_{1},\cdots,p_{m}<\infty$, then $b_{1},\cdots,b_{m}\in BMO$. Therefore,
the result of Chaffee \cite{C} (or Li and Wick \cite{LW}) is extended to the
general case.
