English

Alternative forms

• broo
• burroo

Noun

buroo ‎(uncountable)

1. (Scotland, slang) The Labour Bureau; hence, unemployment benefits; the dole.
   • 193?, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, ‘Forsaken’, Smeddum, Canongate 2001:

     Johnny kenned at once the coarse brute was drunk same as father was Friday nights when he got his money from the Broo.

   • 1990, Alasdair Gray, ‘Quiet People’, Canongate 2012 (Every Short Story 1951-2012), p. 461:

     ‘Anyway, MacFee is very good at stripping lead and copper and zinc and iron from old factories and houses that are going to be demolished – folk pay him to do that, and when work is short he never goes on the burroo.