Busy vs Business - What's the difference?
busy | business |
Crowded with business or activities; having a great deal going on.
* Shakespeare
Engaged in another activity or by someone else.
Having a lot going on; complicated or intricate.
Officious; meddling.
* 1603 , , IV. ii. 130:
To make somebody busy , to keep busy with, to occupy, to make occupied.
* On my vacation I'll busy myself with gardening.
To rush somebody.
A police officer.
(countable) A specific commercial enterprise or establishment.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=68, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (countable) A person's occupation, work, or trade.
(uncountable) Commercial, industrial, or professional activity.
(uncountable) The volume or amount of commercial trade.
* {{quote-magazine, title=No hiding place
, date=2013-05-25, volume=407, issue=8837, page=74, magazine=(The Economist)
(uncountable) One's dealings; patronage.
(uncountable) Private commercial interests taken collectively.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Schumpeter
, title= (uncountable) The management of commercial enterprises, or the study of such management.
(countable) A particular situation or activity.
(countable) An objective or a matter needing to be dealt with.
*
(uncountable) Something involving one personally.
(uncountable, parliamentary procedure) Matters that come before a body for deliberation or action.
(travel, uncountable) Business class, the class of seating provided by airlines between first class and coach.
* {{quote-book, 1992, James Wallace and Jim Erickson, Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, page=154
, passage=Gates, who always flew business or coach, didn't particularly like the high air fares Nishi was charging to Microsoft,
(acting) Action carried out with a prop or piece of clothing, usually away from the focus of the scene.
* {{quote-book, 1983, Peter Thomson, Shakespeare's Theatre, page=155
, passage= The business with the hat is a fine example of the difficulty of distinguishing between 'natural' and 'formal' acting.}}
(countable, rare) The collective noun for a group of ferrets.
* {{quote-book, 2004, , The Jaguar Knights: A Chronicle of the King's Blades, page=252
, passage=I'm sure his goons will go through the ship like a business of ferrets, and they'll want to look in our baggage. }}
(uncountable, slang, British) Something very good; top quality. (possibly from "the bee's knees")
(slang, uncountable) Excrement, particularly that of a non-human animal.
Of, to, pertaining to or utilized for purposes of conducting trade, commerce, governance, advocacy or other professional purposes.
* 1897 , Reform Club (New York, N.Y.) Sound Currency Committee, Sound currency , Volumes 4-5,
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=10 * 1996 , Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, American Law Reports: Annotations and Cases , Volume 35,
* 2003 , Marvin Snider, Compatibility Breeds Success: How to Manage Your Relationship with Your Business Partner ,
Professional, businesslike, having concern for good business practice.
* 1889 , The Clothier and furnisher , Volume 19,
* 1909 , La Salle Extension University, Business Administration: Business Practice ,
* 1927 , Making of America Project, (w, Harper's Magazine) , Volume 154,
* 2009 , (Frank Channing Haddock), Business Power: Supreme Business Laws and Maxims that Win Wealth ,
Supporting business, conducive to the conduct of business.
* 1867 , (Edmund Hodgson Yates) (editor), Amiens'', in ''Tinsley's Magazine ,
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-08, volume=407, issue=8839, page=55, magazine=(The Economist)
, title=
As adjectives the difference between busy and business
is that busy is crowded with business or activities; having a great deal going on while business is of, to, pertaining to or utilized for purposes of conducting trade, commerce, governance, advocacy or other professional purposes.As nouns the difference between busy and business
is that busy is {{cx|slang|UK|Liverpool|derogatory|lang=en}} A police officer while business is a specific commercial enterprise or establishment.As a verb busy
is to make somebody busy, to keep busy with, to occupy, to make occupied.busy
English
Adjective
(er)- a busy street
- To-morrow is a busy day.
- The director cannot see you now, he's busy .
- Her telephone has been busy all day.
- She is too busy to have time for riddles.
- Flowers, stripes, and checks in the same fabric make for a busy pattern.
- I will be hanged if some eternal villain, / Some busy and insinuating rogue, / Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office, / Have not devised this slander; I'll be hanged else.
Verb
Noun
(busies)Anagrams
* 1000 English basic wordsbusiness
English
Noun
T time, passage=The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them, which is then licensed to related businesses in high-tax countries, is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies.}}
citation, passage=In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business , but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.}}
Cronies and capitols, passage=Policing the relationship between government and business in a free society is difficult. Businesspeople have every right to lobby governments, and civil servants to take jobs in the private sector.}}
citation
citation
citation
Derived terms
* agribusiness * big business * business as usual * business analyst * business architect * business before pleasure * business card * business class * business day * business deal * business economics * business end * business English * business ethics * business failure * business girl * business intelligence * business lunch * business model * business name * business plan * business practice * business record * business risk * business trip * business trust * business unit * business venture * businesslike * businessman * businessperson * businesswoman * business-to-business * do business * e-business * family business * funny business * get down to business * give someone the business * line of business * mean business * mind one's own business * monkey business * order of business * out of business * personal business * place of business * show business * small business * take care of business * unfinished business * we appreciate your businessAdjective
page cclii,
- They are solely business' instruments. Every man's relation to them is purely a '''business''' relation. His use of them is purely a ' business use.
citation, passage=With a little manœuvring they contrived to meet on the doorstep which was […] in a boiling stream of passers-by, hurrying business people speeding past in a flurry of fumes and dust in the bright haze.}}
page 432,
- the fact that the injured party came to the insured premises for solely business purposes precluded any reliance on the non-business pursuits exception (§ 1 1 2[b]).
page 298,
- Both of these partnerships have to cope with these dual issues in a more complicated way than is the case in solely business partnerships.
page 38,
- He is thoroughly business , but has the happy faculty of transacting it in a genial and courteous manner.
page 77,
- and the transaction carried through in a thoroughly business manner.
page 502,
- Sometimes this very subtle contrast becomes only too visible, as when in wartime Jewish business men were almost lynched because they were thoroughly business men and worked for profit.
page 231,
- The moral is evident: do not invest in schemes promising enormous and quick returns unless you have investigated them in a thoroughly business manner.
page 430,
- Amiens is a thoroughly business town, the business being chiefly with the flax-works.
Obama goes troll-hunting, passage=According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.}}