bureaucracy

Bureaucracy comes from French bureaucratie, coined by Jean Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay by joining bureau ("office") with -cratie ("rule of"). Bureau traces back through Old French burel and bure to Latin burra ("shaggy cloth") and burrus, itself from Ancient Greek πῠρρός (pŭrrhós, "reddish"), which comes from πῦρ (pûr, "fire"). The -cracy part goes back to Ancient Greek κράτος (krátos, "power, rule").

The reddish cloth (burra/burrus) gave its name to the coarse fabric used to cover writing desks, and from there "bureau" came to mean the desk itself, then the office, and eventually the officials who staffed it. Vincent de Gournay fused that word with "-cratie" to name rule by desks and offices rather than by people.

Bureaucracy shares its second half with words like "democracy" and "autocracy," all built on Greek kratos, "power" or "rule."