контора

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.

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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.

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)