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bureau
DCHP-2 (Nov 2012)
1n. — mostly Quebec, somewhat dated
a dresser, a chest of drawers where clothing is kept.
Type: 2. Preservation — Use of this meaning is today largely restricted to Quebec, where only Anglophones whose parents were born and raised in the province use it as a majority term (Chambers & Heisler 1999: Figure 9, shown in Chart 1 in the version of Chambers 2000). Chart 1 shows this quite clearly for Quebec City Anglophones. Bureau is preferred over "dresser" more than 50% of the time only for those who score a "Regionality Index" of 1, i.e. they were born and raised in Quebec City, they still live there and their parents were also born and raised there. The form is a minor variant for all other speakers, even those born and raised in the city but whose parents were from elsewhere, even other Quebec cities (these speakers would have a "Regionality Index" of 2 or 3).
COD-2 labels the term simply as "N Amer." for a "a chest of drawers", which is no longer the case as Chambers' data suggests.
COD-2 labels the term simply as "N Amer." for a "a chest of drawers", which is no longer the case as Chambers' data suggests.
Ancedotal evidence suggests that the term in this meaning among Ontario retirees and, doubtless, in other Canadian regions this minority meaning also still exists.
Quotations
1915
I give to my niece Marguerite also my pearls. I give the contents of my bureau at Cobourg to be equally divided amoung my four nieces, Marcella, Marguerite, Grace, and Hazel.
1961
Some months ago, looking for a misplaced article, I came across a so-called magazine for men hidden under clothing in his bureau drawer.
1986
"I didn't know one of my men brought the cat out," he said. Robert said that when he last saw the cat, it was sitting on top of a clothes bureau.
2008
Cyr: (In front of a large clothes bureau) This used to be my old bureau and Laurence painted it.
The top looks like marble. I guess you would call it faux marble? And it matches the other furniture in the room.
Petit: I had too many different pieces of furniture in the bedroom, and I thought the bureau wasn't very nice. But Jonathan didn't want to get rid of it. Plus he arrived here with nothing. He arrived with this bureau and a futon.
Petit: I had too many different pieces of furniture in the bedroom, and I thought the bureau wasn't very nice. But Jonathan didn't want to get rid of it. Plus he arrived here with nothing. He arrived with this bureau and a futon.
2†n., plural: bureaux — obsolete
a writing desk with drawers.
The term is no longer in general use to refer to a desk except for particular types of antique furniture (see the 1992 and 1999 quotations). The OED-3's first quotation for 'writing desk' is from 1741, while the meaning of 'chest of drawers', which is marked as American, is first attested in a quotation from 1819. However, often the context give for the quotations does not distinguish clearly which piece of furniture is meant.
The term bureau in this sense is a borrowing from French. Canadians may be more likely to use bureau to mean desk because of English-French bilingualism, but this tendency would be difficult to distinguish from a preservation of the British use of the word.
See W-3, s.v. "bureau" (1a), which marked the term as "Brit", AHD-5, s.v. "bureau" (2), which is marked "Chiefly British". COD-2 labels this meaning as "Cdn & Brit.", for which we find little evidence. OED-3 labels the meaning as "Uncommon in North American usage, owing to the predominance of sense 4 [i.e. 'chest of drawers']. This statement, while correct during the editing of OED-1 [1884 to 1933] no longer fits the facts offered under meaning 1.
The term bureau in this sense is a borrowing from French. Canadians may be more likely to use bureau to mean desk because of English-French bilingualism, but this tendency would be difficult to distinguish from a preservation of the British use of the word.
See W-3, s.v. "bureau" (1a), which marked the term as "Brit", AHD-5, s.v. "bureau" (2), which is marked "Chiefly British". COD-2 labels this meaning as "Cdn & Brit.", for which we find little evidence. OED-3 labels the meaning as "Uncommon in North American usage, owing to the predominance of sense 4 [i.e. 'chest of drawers']. This statement, while correct during the editing of OED-1 [1884 to 1933] no longer fits the facts offered under meaning 1.
Quotations
1763
I wish I could remember the rest; but you are a cruel creature, never will leave me a copy of any thing, dreading the severity of my criticism: nay, you are right; yours are excelled verses, as Moliere says, to lock up in your bureau.
1792
M. de Mirabeau, soon after, requested the key of his bureau; and a messenger having gone to his secretary's apartment for that purpose, found him weltering in his blood, in consequence of several stabs, which he had given himself with a pen-knife.
1841
"A bureau was found opened, and a cash-box, which Mr. Haredale had brought down that day, and was supposed to contain a large sum of money was gone. The steward ad the gardener were both missing, and both suspected for a long time; but they were never found, though hunted far and wide. [...]"
1848
On the boulevards a great many trees were cut down, and the bureaux of the men who register the hackney cabs were dragged into the middle of the roadway. -- Almost every barricade was guarded by a small number of persons, some of whom were armed with guns, others with clubs; but the great majority were without arms at all.
1894
It was seeing Oak last night place [his journal and letters] within her bureau drawer that made her suspicious of his errand, and opening it she found them gone. The book, too, was missing, and like a flash there came to her a comprehension of the peculiar flatness of Oak's great coat as he trudged away.
1992
The table, known as a bureau plat, was made in the neo-classical style by Jean-Francois Leleu in the early 1770s.
References
- OED-3
- W-3
- AHD-5
- Chambers & Heisler (1999)
- Chambers (2000)
- COD-2
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