| 释义 |
bureau|bjuːˈrəʊ, ˈbjʊərəʊ|
pl. -x, -s |-əʊz|.
[a. F. bureau writing-desk, office, from bureau coarse woollen stuff, baize (for covering writing-desks); see burel. (In sense 2 formerly treated as Fr. and pronounced (byro).) In Great Britain the stress was orig. on the final syllable; Webster gives it only on the first.]
1. a. ‘A chest of drawers with a writing-board’ (J.): a writing-desk with drawers for papers, etc. bureau-bed = box-bed.
1742Richardson Pamela IV. 79 My Diamond Buckle..Miss Nancy will find in the inner Till of my Bureau. 1764Foote Patron ii. i, I suppose..my memory or mind to be a chest of drawers, a kind of bureau. 1818Cruise Digest vi. 66 After the testator's death both sheets of paper were found in his bureau. 1875M. E. Braddon Strange World II. i. 3 A heavy old bureau, brass handled and brass clamped.
b. A chest of drawers. U.S.
1819St. Louis Enquirer 15 Sept. (Th.), Look in the bureaus and trunks of modern men of fashion and see the number of coats, waistcoats, pantaloons, &c. 1837Southern Lit. Messenger III. 333 The only bureau and the only rocking-chair were in Charlotte's room. 1890E. Custer Following Guidon 253 Our bureaus were always called bureaus; but they were in fact packing boxes.
c. attrib.
1843‘R. Carlton’ New Purchase I. 199 The bureau-top was consecrated to Bibles and Hymn-Books. 1854M. J. Holmes Tempest & Sunshine xxiii. 328 Safely stowed away at the bottom of her bureau-drawer..was a big daguerreo⁓type. 1867Mrs. Whitney L. Goldthwaite vi, Bits of most delicate ferns..filled a great shallow Indian china dish upon her bureau-top. 1939T. S. Eliot Old Possum's Pract. Cats 18 He likes to lie in the bureau drawer. 1969R. Jaffe Fame Game xii. 184 When she was out of the house her mother went through her bureau drawers.
2. An office, esp. for the transaction of public business; a department of public administration. spec. In modern use, an office or business with a specified function; an agency for the co-ordination of related activities, the distribution of information, etc.
In this sense the word is chiefly employed when foreign countries are referred to. In the U.S. it occurs in the official titles of certain government offices, whence also in very recent official use in England, as in ‘Emigration Bureau’, ‘Labour Bureau’.
1720Lond. Gaz. 5835/3 The Bank having opened a Bureau for buying and selling Actions. 1789–96Morse Amer. Geog. II. 463 The department of the treasury..is divided into twelve bureaux. 1813Sir R. Wilson Priv. Diary II. 433 The counsels which have..emanated from the Austrian bureaux. 1856Emerson Eng. Traits Wks. 1874 II. 41 They have made London a shop, a law-court, a record office, and scientific bureau. 1880E. Kirke Garfield 43 What can a bureau do, with the whole weight of congressional influence pressing for the appointment of men because they are our friends. 1922, etc. Information bureau [see information 8]. 1932L. Golding Magnolia St. ii. xi. 417 The family was to make all arrangements at Garden's Travel Bureau. 1962Wodehouse Service with a Smile v. 70 A typewriting bureau, eh?.. One of those places full of machines and girls hammering away at them like a lot of dashed riveters.
Hence buˈreauism, officialism, ‘red-tape-ism’.
1871Daily News 9 Feb., The Ministry..with all its routine of tape, wax, seals, and bureauism. |