Etymologically
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bureau

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 16 October 2026 at 02:24. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈbjʊə.rəʊ/, /ˈbjɔː.rəʊ/, US /ˈbjʊr.oʊ/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French bureau (“office, desk; originally a cloth covering for a desk”),[2][3][4] from Old French burel (“coarse woollen cloth”), a diminutive of bure “dark brown cloth”,[2][3][5] of uncertain origin: perhaps from Latin burrus “red”, from Greek pyrrhós, or from Late Latin burra “coarse wool”.[2][3][6][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A writing desk with drawers: 1699 in Barnhart, the 1690s in Etymonline, 1742 in the OED.[3][2][7]

Semantic evolution

Because such desks were the common furniture of offices, by 1720 the word meant an office for public business, first in the London Gazette.[2][3][7][8] A chest of drawers for clothes is from 1770, said to be American though early in British use.[2] In North America the piece of furniture is a chest of drawers rather than a desk.[8] Bureaucracy is from 1818, from French bureaucratie, a coinage of the economist Vincent de Gournay.[3]

Timeline

  • 1699 – a writing desk.[3]
  • 1720 – an office.[3][7]
  • 1770 – a chest of drawers.[2]
  • 1818 – bureaucracy.[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. An office or agency providing a service: a travel bureau.
  2. A government department or one of its divisions.
  3. (British) A writing desk with drawers.
  4. (US) A chest of drawers.

Word family

  • bureaucrat
  • subbureau
  • bureau de change
  • credit bureau

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press