# business
## English
### Alternative forms

* biz (clipping)
* bisoness, businesse, busynesse (obsolete)
* bizness (pronunciation spelling, AAVE)
* bidness (Southern pronunciation spelling, AAVE)

### Etymology

From Middle English busines, busynes, businesse, bisynes, from Old English bisiġnes (“business, busyness”), equivalent to busy +‎ -ness. Doublet of busyness.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbɪz.nɪs/, /ˈbɪz.nɪz/
* (weak vowel merger) IPA: /ˈbɪz.nəs/, /ˈbɪz.nəz/
* Audio (US):(file)
* (Southern US) IPA: /ˈbɪz.nɪs/, /ˈbɪd.nɪs/
* Hyphenation: busi‧ness
* Rhymes: -ɪznɪs, -ɪznɪz, -ɪznəs, -ɪznəz, -ɪdnəs, -ɪdnəz
* (Can we verify this pronunciation?) (particularly: final /z/)

### Noun

business (countable and uncountable, plural businesses)
* (countable) A specific commercial enterprise or establishment.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:enterprise
    I left my father's business.
** 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68: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.
* (countable) A person's occupation, work, or trade.
    He is in the motor and insurance businesses.
    I'm going to Las Vegas on business.
* (uncountable) Commercial, industrial, or professional activity.
    He's such a poor cook, I can't believe he's still in business!
    We do business all over the world.
* (uncountable) The volume or amount of commercial trade.
    Business has been slow lately.
    They did nearly a million dollars of business over the long weekend.
** 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist‎, volume 407, number 8837, page 74: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.
* (uncountable) One's dealings; patronage.
    I shall take my business elsewhere.
* (uncountable) Private commercial interests taken collectively.
    This proposal will satisfy both business and labor.
** 2013 August 10, Schumpeter, “Cronies and capitols”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848: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.
* (uncountable) The management of commercial enterprises, or the study of such management.
    I studied business at Harvard.
* (countable) A particular situation or activity.
    This UFO stuff is a mighty strange business.
** [1545?], John Heywood, The Playe Called The Foure PP […], London: […] Wyllyam Myddylton, →OCLC; reprinted as John S. Farmer, editor, The Play Called The Four PP […] (The Tudor Facsimile Texts), London; Edinburgh: […] T. C. & E. C. Jack, […], 1908, →OCLC, signature [E.ii.], verso:The wolde ſome mayſter perhappes clowt ye / But as for me ye nede nat doute ye / For I had leuer be without ye / Then haue ſuche beſyneſſe aboute ye.
* (countable) Any activity or objective needing to be dealt with; especially, one of a financial or legal matter.
    Our principal business here is to get drunk.
    Let's get down to business.
** 1651, Thomas Hobbes, “Chapter I: Of Sense”, in Leviathan‎:To know the naturall cause of Sense, is not very necessary to the business now in hand; and I have els-where written of the same at large.
* (uncountable) Something involving one personally.
    That's none of your business.
* (uncountable, parliamentary procedure) Matters that come before a body for deliberation or action.
    If that concludes the announcements, we'll move on to new business.
* (travel, uncountable) Business class, the class of seating provided by airlines between first class and coach.
** 1992, James Wallace, Jim Erickson, Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire‎, page 154:Gates, who always flew business or coach, didn't particularly like the high air fares Nishi was charging to Microsoft, […]
* (acting, theater) Ellipsis of stage business (“aspect of acting”).
** 1983, Peter Thomson, Shakespeare's Theatre‎, →ISBN, page 155: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.
    Synonym: fesnyng
** 2004, Dave Duncan, The Jaguar Knights: A Chronicle of the King's Blades‎, →ISBN, page 252:I'm sure his goons will go through the ship like a business of ferrets, and they'll want to look in our baggage.
* (slang, British) Something very good; top quality. (possibly from "the bee's knees")
    These new phones are the business!
* (slang, uncountable) The act of defecation, or the excrement itself, particularly that of a non-human animal.
    Your ferret left his business all over the floor.
    As the cart went by, its horse lifted its tail and did its business.
* (slang) Disruptive shenanigans.
    I haven't seen cartoons giving someone the business since the 1990s.
* (Australian Aboriginal) Matters. (e.g sorry business = a funeral)

#### Derived terms

* agribusiness
* agri-business
* agrobusiness
* agrobusinessman
* antibusiness
* any other business
* bad business
* big business
* biz
* bizopp
* bleisure
* book of business
* business administration
* business analyst
* business angel
* business architect
* business as usual
* business-as-usual
* business before pleasure
* business boy
* business card
* business case
* business casual
* business class
* business continuity planning
* business cost
* businesscrat
* business-critical
* business cycle
* business day
* business deal
* business development
* business district
* business economics
* business end
* business English
* businessese
* business ethics
* business failure
* businessfolk
* business-friendly
* business girl
* business hours
* business idea
* business index
* business intelligence
* business in the front, party in the back
* business is business
* business key
* business law
* businessless
* businesslike
* business-like
* business logic
* business lunch
* businessly
* business machine
* business man
* businessman
* business-man
* business model
* business name
* businessness
* business object
* business opportunity
* business owner
* business park
* business partner
* businessperson
* businessplace
* business plan
* business practice
* business record
* business reply
* business risk
* business rule
* business school
* business studies
* business suit
* business-to-business
* business-to-business-to-consumer
* business-to-consumer
* business-to-employee
* business-to-institutions
* business trip
* business trust
* business unit
* business venture
* businesswear
* businesswide
* businesswise
* businesswoman
* businessworthy
* businessy
* by-business
* cannabusiness
* central business district
* close of business
* core business
* crypto business
* cyberbusiness
* dirty business
* do a land-office business
* do business
* do one's business
* do someone's business
* ease of doing business index
* e-business
* edubusiness
* family business
* farm business tenancy
* fesnyng
* funny business
* genteel business
* get down to business
* give someone the business
* go about one's business
* have no business
* in business
* in the business of
* it's none of your business
* leg business
* like it's nobody's business
* like nobody's business
* line of business
* make it one's business
* M-business
* mean business
* megabusiness
* microbusiness
* mind one's business
* mind one's own business
* mind-your-own-business
* mix business with pleasure
* monkey business
* multibusiness
* non-business, nonbusiness
* none of someone's business
* order of business
* ordinary course of business
* out of business
* personal business
* place of business
* prebusiness
* probusiness
* pro-business
* send about one's business
* Shoah business
* show biz
* showbiz
* show business
* showbusiness
* small business
* sorry business
* stage business
* stand on business
* stick to business
* stroke of business
* superbusiness
* take care of business
* take one's business elsewhere
* telebusiness
* the business
* there's no business like show business
* unfinished business
* we appreciate your business
* women's business
* zombie business

#### Related terms

* pidgin

#### Descendants

* Tok Pisin: bisnis
* → Albanian: biznes
* → Belarusian: бі́знэс (bíznes)
* → Bulgarian: би́знес (bíznes)
* → Czech: business, byznys
* → Dutch: business
** → Indonesian: bisnis, bisnes
* → Faroese: besnissaður
* → Finnish: bisnes, business
* → French: business
* → Haitian Creole: biznis
* → Italian: business
* → Japanese: ビジネス (bijinesu)
* → Jersey Dutch: bääznäs
* → Marshallese: peejnej
* → Moroccan Arabic: بزناس (biznās)
* → Newar: बनय्‌ज्या (banêjyā), बनेज्या (banejyā)
* → Pennsylvania German: Bisniss
* → Polish: biznes
* → Romanian: bișniță
* → Russian: би́знес (bíznes), би́знесъ (bíznɛs) — Pre-reform orthography (1918)
** → Armenian: բիզնես (biznes)
** → Yakut: биисинэс (biisines)
* → Slovak: biznis
* → Spanish: bisnes
* → Tatar: business
* → Ukrainian: бі́знес (bíznes)
* → Welsh: busnes

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Adjective

business
* Of, to, pertaining to, or used for purposes of conducting trade, commerce, governance, advocacy or other professional purposes.
    Please do not use this phone for personal calls; it is a business phone.
** 1897, Reform Club (New York, N.Y.) Sound Currency Committee, Sound Currency‎, volumes 4-5, 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.
** 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 10, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC: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.
** 1996, Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, American Law Reports: Annotations and Cases‎, volume 35, 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]).
** 2003, Marvin Snider, Compatibility Breeds Success: How to Manage Your Relationship with Your Business Partner‎, 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.
* Professional, businesslike, having concern for good business practice.
** 1889, The Clothier and furnisher‎, volume 19, page 38:He is thoroughly business, but has the happy faculty of transacting it in a genial and courteous manner.
** 1909, Business Administration: Business Practice‎, La Salle Extension University, page 77:[…] and the transaction carried through in a thoroughly business manner.
** 1927, “Making of America Project”, in Harper's Magazine‎, volume 154, 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.
** 2009, Frank Channing Haddock, Business Power: Supreme Business Laws and Maxims that Win Wealth‎, 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.
* Supporting business, conducive to the conduct of business.
** 1867, “Amiens”, in Edmund Hodgson Yates, editor, Tinsley's Magazine‎, page 430:Amiens is a thoroughly business town, the business being chiefly with the flax-works.
** 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55: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.

### See also

* Appendix: Animals
* Appendix:English collective nouns

### References

* ↑ Jespersen, Otto (1909) A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9)‎, volumes I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 6.63, page 202: “business may sometimes still be heard /bizniz/”.

### Further reading

* “business”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
* business in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
* “business”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

### Anagrams

* busseins, buisness

## Czech
### Pronunciation

* IPA: [ˈbɪznɪs]

### Noun

business m inan
* business

#### Declension
### Further reading

* “business”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
* “business”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989

## Dutch
### Etymology

Borrowed from English business.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbɪsnɪs/
* Audio:(file)
* Hyphenation: busi‧ness

### Noun

business m (uncountable)
* business (commercial activity or specific commercial enterprise)
    Onder de bezielende leiding van Pierre Vinken is de wetenschappelijke tak uitgegroeid tot de core business van RELX.Under the inspiring leadership of Pierre Vinken, the scientific branch has grown into the core business of RELX.

## Finnish
### Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English business.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbisnes/, [ˈbis̠ne̞s̠]
* IPA: /ˈpisnes/, [ˈpis̠ne̞s̠]
* IPA: /ˈbusinesː/, [ˈbus̠ine̞s̠ː]
* Rhymes: -isnes
* Hyphenation: busi‧ness

### Noun

business
* Alternative spelling of bisnes

#### Usage notes

It may be advisable to avoid using this term in writing.

#### Declension

This spelling does not fit nicely into Finnish declension system and is therefore seldom used, and mainly in nominative singular.
Pronunciation "bisnes":
Inflection of business (type vastaus)
singular
plural
nominative
business
bisnekset
genitive
bisneksen
bisneksien bisnesten
partitive
bisnestä
bisneksiä
accusative
business bisneksen
bisnekset
inessive
bisneksessä
bisneksissä
elative
bisneksestä
bisneksistä
illative
bisnekseen
bisneksiin
adessive
bisneksellä
bisneksillä
ablative
bisnekseltä
bisneksiltä
allative
bisnekselle
bisneksille
essive
bisneksenä
bisneksinä
translative
bisnekseksi
bisneksiksi
abessive
bisneksettä
bisneksittä
instructive
bisneksin
comitative
bisneksineen :
Pronunciation "business":
Inflection of business (type vastaus)
singular
plural
nominative
business
businekset
genitive
busineksen
busineksien businesten
partitive
businesta
busineksia
accusative
business busineksen
businekset
inessive
busineksessa
busineksissa
elative
busineksesta
busineksista
illative
businekseen
busineksiin
adessive
busineksella
busineksilla
ablative
businekselta
busineksilta
allative
businekselle
busineksille
essive
busineksena
busineksina
translative
businekseksi
busineksiksi
abessive
busineksetta
busineksitta
instructive
busineksin
comitative
busineksineen :

#### Synonyms

* See Synonyms-section under bisnes

#### Derived terms

* businessluokka

### Further reading

* “business”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎ (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-02

## French
### Etymology

Borrowed from English business.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /biz.nɛs/
* (Quebec) IPA: [bɪz.nɪs]
* Audio:(file)

### Noun

business m (plural business)
* business, firm, company
* business, affairs

### Further reading

* “business”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

## Italian
### Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English business.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbi.znes/, /ˈbi.znis/
* Rhymes: -iznes, -iznis

### Noun

business m (invariable)
* business (commercial enterprise)
    Synonyms: affare, affari, impresa

### References

* ↑ business in Luciano Canepari, Dizionario di Pronuncia Italiana (DiPI)

## Polish
### Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English business.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbiz.nɛs/
* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -iznɛs
* Syllabification: busi‧ness

### Noun

business m inan
* (business, education) Alternative spelling of biznes

#### Declension
### Further reading

* business in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
* business in Polish dictionaries at PWN

## Romanian
### Etymology

From Unadapted borrowing from English business.

### Noun

business n (plural businessuri)
* business

#### Declension
## Tatar
### Etymology

Borrowed from English business.

### Noun

business
* business

#### Declension
### References

business dairäläre iğtibarın Tatarstan belän