buro

See also: buró, büro, büró, and Büro

English

Alternative forms

• bureau

Etymology

Borrowed from French bureau (“desk”, earlier “coarse cloth (as desk cover), baize”), from Old French burel (“woolen cloth”), diminutive of *bure (compare Middle French bure (“coarse woolen cloth”), French bourre (“hair, fluff”)), from Late Latin burra (“wool, fluff, shaggy cloth, coarse fabric”); akin to Ancient Greek βερβέριον (berbérion, “shabby garment”).

Noun

buro (plural buros)

1. an office
   • 1998 May 13, “More than 9000 Basotho Gold Miners Retrenched”, in ANC Dailey News Briefing‎^[1]:

     … 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”, in Ground Report‎^[2], archived from the original on 26 April 2013:

     … 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^[3], HTML edition, 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^[4], Online edition, 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”, in 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 (br)
• Bulgarian: кантора (bg) f (kantora), бюро (bg) n (bjuro)
• 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 (he) f (lishka)
• Italian: ufficio (it) m
• Maltese: uffiċċju m
• Portuguese: escritório (pt) m
• Russian: бюро́ (ru) n (bjuró), конто́ра (ru) f (kontóra)
• Spanish: oficina (es) f
• Swedish: byrå (sv) c

desk

• Armenian: գրասեղան (hy) (grasełan)
• Bulgarian: писалище (bg) n (pisalište), бюро (bg) n (bjuro)
• Dutch: bureau (nl) n, bureel (nl) 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
• Italian: scrivania (it) f, scrittoio (it) m
• Maltese: skrivanija
• Portuguese: mesa (pt), escrivaninha (pt)
• Russian: бюро́ (ru) n (bjuró), (colloquial) конто́рка (ru) f (kontórka)
• Spanish: escritorio (es) m

chest of drawers for clothes

• Dutch: kledingkast (nl) f or m, kast (nl) f or m
• Finnish: lipasto (fi)
• German: Kommode (de) f
• Italian: cassettone (it), comò (it)
• Maltese: burò
• Portuguese: cômoda (pt) f, cômodas f pl
• Russian: комо́д (ru) m (komód)
• Spanish: cómoda (es) f
• Swedish: byrå (sv) c

Anagrams

• Bour, Bøur

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch bureau, from French bureau, from Middle French burel, from Old French burel.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /byˈrʊə̯/

Noun

buro (plural buro's)

1. desk
2. office

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /byˈroː/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: bu‧ro

Noun

buro n (plural buro's, diminutive burootje n)

1. Superseded spelling of bureau.

Istro-Romanian

Adjective

buro n

1. neuter singular of bur

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbu.rɔ/
• Rhymes: -urɔ
• Syllabification: bu‧ro

Noun

buro f

1. vocative singular of bura

Swedish

Verb

buro

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

Ternate

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈbu.ɾo]

Noun

buro

1. a large shrimp

References

• Rika Hayami-Allen (2001) A descriptive study of the language of Ternate, the northern Moluccas, Indonesia, University of Pittsburgh