Buster vs Muster - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between buster and muster

is that buster is someone who or something that bursts, breaks, or destroys a specified thing while muster is gathering.

As a proper noun Buster

is {{surname}.

As a verb muster is

to show, exhibit.

buster

English

(Buster)

Alternative forms

* Buster * -buster

Noun

(en noun)

Someone who or something that bursts, breaks, or destroys a specified thing.

* 1614 , S. Jerome, Moses his Sight of Canaan , 147:

Now death, I pray thee what is it, but a buster of bonds; a destruction of toyle?

* 2005 , J. Madhavan, Sita & Forest Bandits , 122:

Rothlin was described... by the papers as the buster of the bandit ring.

# .

#* 1940 September 2, Life , 29/1:

German ‘balloon busters ’ attack the Dover barrage.

#* 1958 February 10, Life , 70:

Our main purpose in further experimentation with nuclear bombs is not... to make city-busters more horrible.

Someone who or something that 'breaks', tames, or overpowers a specified person or thing.

# A bronco-buster.

#* 1891 July, Harper's Magazine , 208/2

The buster must be careful to keep well away from sheds and timber.

# (Forming compounds denoting an agent or agency tasked with reducing or eliminating the first element).

#* 1920 , F. A. McKenzie, ‘Pussyfoot’ Johnson , v. 83:

Men nicknamed him the ‘Booze Buster ’, and cartoonists loved to picture him, revolver in hand,... fighting the demon rum.

#* 1974''' July 4, ''New Scientist , 65/2:

The professional fraud-busters [of the art world].

#* 1984 November 18, N.Y. Times , iv. 24/2:

New York City traffic agents have become Gridlock Busters' and cigarette foes are ' smokebusters .

Someone]] or something remarkable, especially for being loud, large, [[etc..

* 1833 April, Parthenon , 293:

‘I had to clean this old roarer,’ continued the ‘editor’... as he wiped the barrel of his pistol. ‘She's a buster , I tell you.’

* 2004 November 20, South Wales Echo , 9:

What a buster of a lunch it turned out to be.

# : guy, dude, fella, mack, buddy, loser. (Originally as 'old buster' .)

#* 1838 March 24, New Yorker , 4/1:

That's generous, old buster .

#* 1919 , , ''(My Man Jeeves), 79:

An extremely wealthy old buster .

#* 2001 , S. MacKay, Fall Guy , ix. 113:

‘Careful, buster ,’ she said. ‘I've got a knife in my hand.’

A loaf of bread.

* 1835 September 16, Morning Post , 4/2:

Three penny busters , and a whole kit-full of winegar and mustard.

* 1904 June 8, Journal of the Department of Labour (New Zealand), 536:

An 8 loaf of brown bread... goes by the name of ‘buster ’, I suppose on account of the way they blow you out.

A drinking spree, a binge.

* 1848 , John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms :

They were on a buster , and were taken up by the police.

* 1922 , (James Joyce), , 405:

All off for a buster , armstrong, hollering down the street.

a southerly buster.

* 1848 , John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms

‘This is a buster ,’ i.e. a powerful or heavy wind.

* 1886 , Frank Cowan, Australia , 14:

The Buster and Brickfielder: austral red-dust blizzard and red-hot Simoom.

* 1991 , J. Moore, By Way of Wind , 121:

When the barometer drops rapidly... watch out for a strong sou'wester. A buster can be on you in a flash.

a staged fall, a pratfall.

* 1874 April, Baily's Monthly Magazine , 114:

Dainty... came down ‘a buster ’ at the last hurdle, and Scots Grey cantered in by himself.

A molting crab.

*1855 October 18, Henry A. Wise, letter in J.P. Hambleton's Biographical Sketch of Henry A. Wise (1856), 448:

In that state he is called a ‘Buster ’, bursting his shell.

* 2002 January 6, N.Y. Times , v. 4/6:

Restaurant August... serves contemporary French cuisine prepared with Louisiana ingredients like buster crabs, shrimp and oysters.

Derived terms

* ballbuster, ball-buster * balloon-buster * belly-buster, belly buster * blockbuster, block-buster * booze-buster * brainbuster * broncobuster, bronco-buster, bronco buster * bunker buster * chartbuster * come a buster * crime buster, crime-buster, crimebuster * dam-buster * dustbuster, dust buster * fort-buster * gangbuster * gangbusters * ghostbuster * have a buster * knuckle-buster * old buster * price buster * rate-buster * rust-buster * scud-buster * ship-buster * skull-buster * tankbuster * unionbuster

Anagrams

References

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muster

English

Noun

(en noun)

Gathering.

# An assemblage or display; a gathering, collection of people or things.

#* 1743 , Joseph Steele & Richard Addison, The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. :

She seems to hear the Repetition of his Mens Names with Admiration; and waits only to answer him with as false a Muster of Lovers.

#* Macaulay

Of the temporal grandees of the realm, and of their wives and daughters, the muster was great and splendid.

#* 1920 , Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia , Issue 13,

The figures from 1788 to 1825 inclusive, as already mentioned, are based on the musters taken in those years; those for subsequent years are based upon estimates made on the basis of Census results and the annual.

#* 1598 , William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1 :

Come, let vs take a muster speedily: / Doomesday is neere; dye all, dye merrily.

#* 1663 , Samuel Pepys, Diary , 4 Jul 1663:

And after long being there, I 'light, and walked to the place where the King, Duke &c., did stand to see the horse and foot march by and discharge their guns, to show a French Marquisse (for whom this muster was caused) the goodness of our firemen

# The sum total of an army when assembled for review and inspection; the whole number of effective men in an army.

#* Wyclif

The muster was thirty thousands of men.

#* Hooker

Ye publish the musters of your own bands, and proclaim them to amount of thousands.

# (Australia, New Zealand) A roundup of livestock for inspection, branding, drenching, shearing etc.

#* 2006 , John Gilfoyle, Bloody Jackaroos! , Boolarong Press:

McGuire took the two of them out to Kidman's Bore on the Sylvester River where about two dozen stockmen from different stations had gathered to tend the muster along the edge of the Simpson Desert.

Showing.

# (obsolete) Something shown for imitation; a pattern.

# (obsolete) An act of showing something; a display.

#* 1590 , Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadia , Book III:

Thus all things being condignely ordered, will an ill favoured impatiencie he waited, until the next morning he might make a muster of him selfe in the Iland [...].

#* 1647 , Beaumont and Fletcher, The Queen of Corinth , Act 2:

And when you find your women's favour fail, / 'Tis ten to one you'll know yourself, and seek me, / Upon a better muster of your manners.

# A collection of peafowl (an invented term rather than one used by zoologists).

Derived terms

* pass muster * bangtail muster

Verb

(en verb)

(obsolete) To show, exhibit.

To be gathered together for parade, inspection, exercise, or the like (especially of a military force); to come together as parts of a force or body.

To collect, call or assemble together, such as troops or a group for inspection, orders, display etc.

* 12 July 2012 , Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental Drift

With the help of some low-end boosting, Dinklage musters a decent amount of kid-appropriate menace—although he never does explain his gift for finding chunks of ice shaped like pirate ships—but Romano and Leary mainly sound bored, droning through their lines as if they’re simultaneously texting the contractors building the additions on their houses funded by their fat sequel paychecks.

(US) To enroll (into service).

Synonyms

* (l)

Derived terms

* muster in * muster out * muster up

References

* *

Anagrams

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