buro

English

Alternative forms

• bureau

Etymology

French bureau ‘desk’, earlier ‘coarse cloth (as desk cover), baize’, from Old French burel ‘woolen cloth’, diminutive of *bure (cf. Middle French bure ‘coarse woolen cloth’, French bourre ‘hair, fluff’), from Late Latin burra ‘wool, fluff, shaggy cloth, coarse fabric’; akin to Ancient Greek berberion ‘shabby garment’.

Noun

buro (plural buros)

1. an office

   • 1998 May 13, “More than 9000 Basotho Gold Miners Retrenched”, ANC Dailey News Briefing:

     … an employment buro said on Tuesday. The retrenchments took place between November last year and March 1998, the Employment Buro of Africa's regional manager, Chris Hechter said.

   • 2008 February 19, Alejandro López de Haro, Jr., “Fidel Castro Steps Down”, Ground Report, accessed on 2012-09-14:

     … a member of both the council of ministers and the Cuban Communist Party's political buro.

2. a desk, usually with a cover and compartments for storing papers etc. located above the level of the writing surface rather than underneath.

   • 1902, Bill Arp, From the Uncivil War to Date^[1], edition HTML, Univ. of North Carolina, published 1998:

     Mrs. Arp opens her school and stands 'em up by the buro to say their lessons.

3. (US) a Chest of drawers for clothes

   • 1885, Marietta Holley, Sweet Cicely^[2], edition Online, The Gutenberg Project, published 2005:

     And I went up into the spare chamber, and sort o' fixed Philury's things to the best advantage; for I knew the neighbors would be in to look at 'em. And I was a standin' there as calm and happy as the buro or table, ...

   • 1998 May, Phil D. Zimmerman, “The Stratford, Connecticut, bureau table: A re-examination”, Antiques, volume 153, number 5, page 740: 

     One can only speculate about the appearance of the "New-fashion buro" advertised for sale in the Boaton Gazette of May 1, 1750.

Related terms

• burocracy
• burocrat
• burocratic
• burel

Translations

office

• Breton: burev
• Bulgarian: кантора (bg) (kantora) f, бюро (bg) (bjuro) n
• Crimean Tatar: büro
• Czech: úřad (cs) m
• Dutch: agentschap (nl) n, kantoor (nl) n, bureau (nl) n
• Finnish: toimisto (fi), virasto (fi)
• French: agence (fr) f, bureau (fr) m
• German: Büro (de) n

• Hebrew: לשכה (lishka) f
• Italian: ufficio (it) m
• Maltese: uffiċċju (mt) m
• Portuguese: Escritório
• Russian: бюро (ru) (bjuró) n, контора (ru) (kontóra) f
• Spanish: oficina (es) f
• Swedish: byrå (sv) c

desk

• Armenian: գրասեղան (hy) (graseġan)
• Bulgarian: писалище (bg) (pisalište) n, бюро (bg) (bjuro) n
• Dutch: bureau n, bureel n
• Finnish: työpöytä (fi), kirjoituspöytä (fi)
• French: secrétaire (fr) m, bureau (fr) m
• German: Sekretär (de) m, Schreibtisch (de) m, Büro (de) n
• Hebrew: שולחן (he)

• Hungarian: szekreter (hu)
• Italian: scrivania (it) f, scrittoio (it) m
• Maltese: skrivanija (mt)
• Portuguese: mesa (pt), escrivaninha (pt)
• Russian: бюро (bjuró) n, (colloquial) конторка (kontórka) f
• Spanish: escritorio (es) m

chest of drawers for clothes

• Dutch: kledingkast f m, kast f m
• Finnish: lipasto (fi)
• German: Kommode (de) f
• Italian: cassettone (it), comò (it)
• Maltese: burò (mt)

• Portuguese: cômoda (pt) f, cômodas (pt) f pl
• Russian: комод (ru) (komód) m
• Spanish: cómoda (es) f
• Swedish: byrå (sv) c

Dutch

Noun

buro n (plural buro's, diminutive burootje)

1. Nonstandard spelling of bureau.

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Istro-Romanian

Adjective

buro n

1. neuter form of bur

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Swedish

Verb

buro

1. Obsolete plural form of bar, past tense of bära.