Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Bureau

Bureau ({not transcribed}) , noun

[French bureau a writing table, desk, office, Old French, drugget, with which a writing table was often covered, equiv. to French bure, and from Old French buire dark brown, the stuff being named from its color, from Latin burrus red, from Greek {not transcribed} flame-colored, prob. from {not transcribed} fire. See Fire, n., and compare Borel, n.]

1.
Originally, a desk or writing table with drawers for papers. — Swift
2.
The place where such a bureau is used; an office where business requiring writing is transacted.
3.
Hence: A department of public business requiring a force of clerks; the body of officials in a department who labor under the direction of a chief.

On the continent of Europe, the highest departments, in most countries, have the name of bureaux; as, the Bureau of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In England and America, the term is confined to inferior and subordinate departments; as, the “Pension Bureau,” a subdepartment of the Department of the Interior. [Obs.] In Spanish, bureo denotes a court of justice for the trial of persons belonging to the king's household.

4.
A chest of drawers for clothes, especially when made as an ornamental piece of furniture. [United States]
Collocations (2)
Bureau system , See Bureaucracy.
Bureau Veritas , an institution, in the interest of maritime underwriters, for the survey and rating of vessels all over the world. It was founded in Belgium in 1828, removed to Paris in 1830, and reestablished in Brussels in 1870.