What is an office? The meaning and origin of the word

The Russian language is a depository of loans. Foreign words now and then slip in our speech, and this is not surprising. After all, at different times, all the known languages of Europe influenced Russian. A lot of borrowings in it from the French, and one of them is the word "bureau". Its meaning is incomprehensible to many of our contemporaries. In this article we will find out what a bureau is and examine 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 of burel, which originated from the Late Latina burra. So in medieval France called inexpensive coarse woolen fabric. She was covered with tables, protecting their surfaces from damage: streams of wax from candles, ink spots and scratches from the feathers of unskillful scribes. According to another version, the first thick cloth was used by money changers, bankers and moneylenders. They covered the tables with her so that the knocking of the counted coins did not attract the attention of the robbers and tax collectors.

Is this a desk?

The name of the fabric gradually passed to the tables hidden under it, and they were called the same - the bureau. It is worth noting that the final form of this piece of furniture acquired during the reign of Louis XIII. Then began to produce tables with a rectangular surface, one central drawer and several side. The Mazarin's bureau was also famous, with more than eight boxes on each side, 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 table top directly depend on the customer's desire.

Bureau as an institution

What is the office in the furniture art, we figured out. But how did it happen that from the name of an ordinary table a word was obtained, which is called solid institutions? The first mention of what a bureau as a concept directly related to the place of human activity is found in the Dictionary of the French Academy. The writing tables, according to him, became the main piece of furniture in the cabinets. That is why they were later called the word "bureau". Thus, it began to designate a place intended for the work or storage of documents. Later people began to call them and respectable institutions.

At present, there are quite a few of them, and each has its own kind of activity. There are, for example, such bureaus:

• Legal;
• Translations;
• Standardization;
• Engineering.

The first institution, which we recall when mentioning the word we are considering, is likely to become the FBI. This world-renowned organization has been operating in the US since 1908 and is still performing its mission brilliantly. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is fighting corruption, terrorism, industrial espionage, searching for highly dangerous criminals and counterintelligence.

So we figured out what a bureau is. An amazing story lasted for centuries, this French word - from simple cloth, rough fabric, to the designation of solid and large institutions.