What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Busy vs Easy - What's the difference?

busy | easy |

As adjectives the difference between busy and easy

is that busy is crowded with business or activities; having a great deal going on while easy is comfortable; at ease.

As verbs the difference between busy and easy

is that busy is to make somebody busy, to keep busy with, to occupy, to make occupied while easy is to easy-oar (stop rowing.

As nouns the difference between busy and easy

is that busy is {{cx|slang|UK|Liverpool|derogatory|lang=en}} A police officer while easy is something that is easy.

As an adverb easy is

in a relaxed or casual manner.

busy

English

Adjective

(er)
  • Crowded with business or activities; having a great deal going on.
  • a busy street
  • * Shakespeare
  • To-morrow is a busy day.
  • Engaged in another activity or by someone else.
  • 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.
  • Having a lot going on; complicated or intricate.
  • Flowers, stripes, and checks in the same fabric make for a busy pattern.
  • Officious; meddling.
  • * 1603 , , IV. ii. 130:
  • 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

  • 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.
  • Noun

    (busies)
  • A police officer.
  • easy

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Comfortable; at ease.
  • * , chapter=16
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=“[…] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.”}}
  • Requiring little skill or effort.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= A new prescription , passage=As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.}}
  • Causing ease; giving comfort, or freedom from care or labour.
  • Rich people live in easy circumstances.
    an easy chair
  • Free from constraint, harshness, or formality; unconstrained; smooth.
  • easy''' manners; an '''easy style
  • * Alexander Pope
  • the easy vigour of a line
  • (informal, pejorative, of a person) Consenting readily to sex.
  • Not making resistance or showing unwillingness; tractable; yielding; compliant.
  • * Dryden
  • He gained their easy hearts.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • He is too tyrannical to be an easy monarch.
  • Not straitened as to money matters; opposed to tight.
  • The market is easy .

    Synonyms

    * (comfortable) relaxed, relaxing * (not difficult) light, eath * (consenting readily to sex) fast * (requiring little skill or effort) soft, trivial * See also

    Antonyms

    * uneasy, anxious * (requiring little skill or effort) difficult, hard, uneasy, uneath, challenging

    Derived terms

    * easiness * easily * easiness * easy as pie * easy chair * easy on the eyes * easy peasy * free and easy * have it easy * I'm easy * take it easy * uneasily * uneasiness

    Adverb

    (er)
  • In a relaxed or casual manner
  • In a manner without strictness or harshness.
  • Used an intensifier for large magnitudes.
  • Not difficult, not hard. (rfex)
  • Noun

    (easies)
  • Something that is easy
  • Verb

  • to easy-oar (stop rowing)
  • Anagrams

    * * * * 1000 English basic words