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.

Noun

(en noun)

The quality (positive or negative) that renders something desirable or valuable.

* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 13, author=Alistair Magowan, work=BBC Sport

, title= Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd , passage=United were value for their win and Rooney could have had a hat-trick before half-time, with Paul Scholes also striking the post in the second half.}}

The degree of importance given to something.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Gary Younge)

, volume=188, issue=26, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution , passage=WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, […]. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.}}

The amount (of money or goods or services) that is considered to be a fair equivalent for something else.

* M'Culloch

An article may be possessed of the highest degree of utility, or power to minister to our wants and enjoyments, and may be universally made use of, without possessing exchangeable value .

* Dryden

His design was not to pay him the value of his pictures, because they were above any price.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Boundary problems , passage=Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.}}

(music) The relative duration of a musical note.

(arts) The relative darkness or lightness of a color in (a specific area of) a painting etc.

* Joe Hing Lowe

I establish the colors and principal values by organizing the painting into three values--dark, mediumand light.

Numerical quantity measured or assigned or computed.

Precise meaning; import.

the value''' of a word; the '''value of a legal instrument

(Mitford)

(obsolete) Esteem; regard.

(Dryden)

* Bishop Burnet

My relation to the person was so near, and my value for him so great.

(obsolete) valour; also spelled valew

(Spenser)