Other forms: bureaus
A bureau is a writing desk with drawers, or an office that gathers and supplies information. Two quite different things, one word.
The furniture sense is the older one, and a bureau has a hinged flap that folds down to write on. The office sense gave English the news bureau, the travel bureau and, in America, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. American English adds a third sense, since a bureau there can be a chest of drawers in a bedroom. The plural is either bureaux or bureaus, and both are correct.
1nounbureauA writing desk with drawers and a hinged writing surface.
“The letters were locked in the bureau.”
2nounofficeAn office collecting or providing information.
“She worked in the paper's Paris bureau.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Latin
burra — wool, fluff, shaggy cloth, coarse fabric
Old French
burel — woolen cloth
French
bureau
English, today
bureau
From bureau. French bureau, earlier "coarse cloth (as desk cover), baize", from Old French burel (“woolen cloth”), diminutive of bure (compare Middle French bure (“coarse woolen cloth”), French bourre (“hair, fluff”)), from Latin burra (“wool, fluff, shaggy cloth, coarse fabric”); akin to Ancient Greek βερβέριον (“shabby garment”). a doublet of burel and borrel, taken from Old French.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA