Origin: French suffix -eau
Bureau has 4 different meanings across 2 categories:
an administrative unit of government
"the Central Intelligence Agency"
"the Census Bureau"
"Office of Management and Budget"
"Tennessee Valley Authority"
furniture with drawers for keeping clothes
"She opened her bureau to find all her winter sweaters neatly folded in the bottom drawer."
An administrative unit of government; office.
"The new bureau is tasked with overseeing all environmental regulations across the state."
In plain English: A bureau is a piece of furniture with drawers used for storing clothes or papers.
"She kept her important documents in the wooden bureau under her desk."
Usage: Use bureau to refer to an administrative agency or department within a government organization that handles specific functions like taxes or immigration. Do not confuse it with a wooden storage cabinet, which is also called a bureau but refers to furniture rather than an official body.
A surname, from French.
"At the family reunion, my uncle Bureau shared stories about his great-grandfather who had emigrated from France in 1890."
The word bureau entered English directly from French, where it originally referred to a piece of coarse woolen cloth used as a desk cover rather than the office furniture we know today. This specific type of fabric was itself derived from Late Latin burra, meaning "wool" or "shaggy cloth."