bureau
Americannoun
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bureaus,
plural
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bureaux
plural
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a chest of drawers, often with a mirror at the top.
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a division of a government department or an independent administrative unit.
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an office for collecting or distributing news or information, coordinating work, or performing specified services; agency.
a travel bureau; a news bureau.
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Chiefly British. a desk or writing table with drawers for papers.
noun
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a writing desk with pigeonholes, drawers, etc, against which the writing surface can be closed when not in use
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a chest of drawers
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an office or agency, esp one providing services for the public
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a government department
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a branch of a government department
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Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of bureau
1710–20; < French: desk, office, originally a kind of cloth (used to cover desks, etc.), Anglo-French, Old French burel, equivalent to bur- (probably < *būra, variant of Late Latin burra wool, fluff ; cf. bourrée) + -el noun suffix
Explanation
When you put your socks away, you'll most likely put them in a bureau, or a chest of drawers used for storing clothes. Hopefully you've washed them. A dresser or a chest of drawers can also be called a bureau, a piece of furniture with drawers for storing things. Another meaning of bureau is "an office or government agency." These two definitions seem unrelated, but the original meaning of the French word bureau, "cloth covering for a desk" helps explain. Bureau gradually evolved to mean first just "desk" (and eventually "dresser"), and around 1720 it also started being used to mean a room full of desks, or an office.
Vocabulary lists containing bureau
The Ottoman Empire: Furniture Words
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Walk Two Moons
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"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Forecasters at the National Weather Service expected Southern California would experience its "hottest week of summer so far", the bureau said in a recent statement.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
Raman said the bureau was a starting point that could one day lead to a department, which she said would be expensive and take a long time to stand up.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 23, 2026
Carolyn Carlson, Data-Clear’s president and founder, said she provided nationwide voting data to the bureau that year as part of a project to try and prevent an undercount of minority voters in the 2030 census.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2026
Before joining the Journal, she was Johannesburg correspondent and bureau chief for AP–Dow Jones, the international arm of the Dow Jones Newswires.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
For Hoover, the Osage murder investigation became a showcase for the modern bureau.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
He has held numerous roles at the network over a four decade run, anchoring the “CBS Evening News,” co-hosting the division’s weekday and Saturday morning shows, covering business and reporting from overseas bureaus.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026
In 2022, Fannie Mae instituted a “positive rent” initiative for landlords to report on-time rent payments—but not late or missed payments—to credit bureaus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 26, 2026
If on-time utility payments are reported to the credit bureaus, Bandebo said they can also bolster a score.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 25, 2026
Asa previously reported on semiconductor companies from the Journal’s San Francisco and New York bureaus, where he covered Nvidia’s rise amid the AI boom and Intel’s struggles to turn itself around.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
I look around at the room I’m lying in, with two bureaus, one of which has a picture of Ollie’s parents.
From "Girl in the Blue Coat" by Monica Hesse
Guests were seen hugging, making calls, texting friends and loved ones, and their news bureaux.
From Barron's ● Apr. 26, 2026
In-store travel money bureaux, which are located in more than 100 stores, are unaffected.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2021
On Monday, £1 bought 92,000 rials on the black market, though many exchange bureaux had stopped trading.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 23, 2018
He fears he will be reported to one of Kenya’s three credit bureaux, jeopardizing his chances of being able to borrow more to grow his business.
From Reuters ● May 25, 2018
“They must have left Paris,” vowed Viscount Diphoos in one of the bureaux.
From Lady Maude's Mania by George Manville Fenn
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
