контора

Russian

Etymology

Borrowed from German Kontor around 1720, from Middle Low German kontôr, komtôr, komptor (“commercial branch; writing room; counting desk/table”), from Middle Dutch contoor, contoir, comptoir, from Middle French contoir, comptoir, from conter, compter (“to count”) + -oir (“instrument sufffix”), from Latin computāre and -tōrium.

Sense 'KGB' originated from a pun playing on another rare meaning of the abbreviation, namely контора глубокого бурения (kontora glubokovo burenija, literally “deep-boring field office”), in the 1960s.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): [kɐnˈtorə]
  • Audio(file)

Noun

конто́ра • (kontóra) f inan (genitive конто́ры, nominative plural конто́ры, genitive plural конто́р, relational adjective конто́рский, diminutive конто́рка)

  1. office, bureau
  2. (colloquial) company
  3. (dated, euphemistic) the KGB
  4. (slang) KGB successors in the Post-Soviet countries: the FSB, SBU etc.

Declension
Declension of конто́ра (inan fem-form hard-stem accent-a) 
singular plural
nominative конто́ра
kontóra		 конто́ры
kontóry
genitive конто́ры
kontóry		 конто́р
kontór
dative конто́ре
kontóre		 конто́рам
kontóram
accusative конто́ру
kontóru		 конто́ры
kontóry
instrumental конто́рой, конто́рою
kontóroj, kontóroju		 конто́рами
kontórami
prepositional конто́ре
kontóre		 конто́рах
kontórax

Descendants
Borrowings
  • → Bulgarian: канто́ра (kantóra)
  • → Belarusian: канто́ра (kantóra)
  • → Chuvash: кантор (kant̬or), кантур (kant̬ur)
  • → Crimean Tatar: kontora
  • → Kyrgyz: контора (kontora)
  • → Kazakh: кәнтор (käntor)
  • → Latvian: kantoris
  • → Lithuanian: kontora
  • → Romanian: cantoră
  • → Talysh: кантор (kantor)
  • → Tajik: контора (kontora)
  • → Tatar: контор (qontor)
  • → Ukrainian: контора (kontora)
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