The Russian language is a storehouse of borrowings. Foreign words now and then slip into our speech, and this is not surprising. After all, at different times Russian was influenced by all the known languages of Europe. There are a lot of borrowings in it from French, and one of them is the word "bureau". Its meaning is completely incomprehensible to many of our contemporaries. In this article, we will learn what a bureau is and explore its etymology.
Origin of the word
This word came to us from sunny France. And there it appeared thanks to Latin. It turns out that the original meaning of the word "bureau" (French bureau) is associated with the Old French concept burel, derived from the Late Latin burra. So in medieval France they called inexpensive coarse woolen fabric. She covered the tables, protecting their surfaces from damage: streams of wax from candles, ink stains and scratches from the pens of inept clerks. According to another version, money changers, bankers and moneylenders were the first to use thick fabric. They covered tables with it to knockcounted coins did not attract the attention of robbers and tax collectors.
Is this a desk?
The name of the fabric gradually moved to the tables hidden under it, and they began to be called the same - the bureau. It is worth noting that this piece of furniture acquired its final form during the reign of Louis XIII. Then tables began to be produced with a rectangular surface, one central drawer and several side ones. The Mazarin bureau also gained fame, in which there were more than eight drawers on the sides - four on each side and several in the center under the table top. In modern times, the number of drawers and the shape of the countertop directly depend on the desire of the customer.
The bureau as an institution
What is a bureau in furniture art, we figured it out. But how did it happen that from the name of an ordinary table a word was obtained, which is called a solid institution? The first mention of such a bureau as a concept directly related to the place of human activity is in the Dictionary of the French Academy. Desks, according to him, have become the main piece of furniture in the offices. That is why they began to be called subsequently the word "bureau". Thus, it began to denote a place intended for work or storage of documents. Later, people began to call them well-established institutions.
Currently there are quite a lot of them, and each has its own type of activity. There are, for example, such bureaus:
- legal;
- translations;
- standardization;
- design.
The first institution we think of when we mention the word we are considering is likely to be the FBI. This world-famous organization has been operating in the United States since 1908 and is still brilliantly fulfilling its mission. The Federal Bureau of Investigation fights corruption, terrorism, industrial espionage, searches for especially dangerous criminals and counterintelligence.
So we figured out what a bureau is. This French word has gone through an amazing history of centuries - from a simple linen, coarse fabric, to the designation of solid and large institutions.
