buroo

plural buroos · alternative broo · alternative burroo

1. ScotlandslangThe Labour Bureau; hence, unemployment benefits; the dole.

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

   193?, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, ‘Forsaken’, Smeddum, Canongate 2001

   1 more example

   ‘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.

   1990, Alasdair Gray, “Quiet People”, in Every Short Story 1951-2012, Canongate, published 2012, page 461