business
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈbɪz.nɪs/
ipa: /ˈbɪz.nɪz/
ipa: /ˈbɪz.nəs/
note: weak vowel merger
ipa: /ˈbɪz.nəz/
ipa: /ˈbɪz.nɪs/
ipa: /ˈbɪd.nɪs/
note: Indic
ipa: /ˈbɪz(ɪ~i)nɛs/
homophone: busyness (for some speakers)
rhymes: -ɪznɪs
rhymes: -ɪznɪz
rhymes: -ɪznəs
rhymes: -ɪznəz
rhymes: -ɪdnəs
rhymes: -ɪdnəz
Forms: form: businesses
form: biz
form: bisoness
form: businesse
form: busynesse
form: bizness
form: bidness
Etymology: From Middle English busines, busynes, businesse, bisynes, from Old English bisiġnes (“business, busyness”), equivalent to busy + -ness. Doublet of busyness. Sense 17 (something very good, top quality), possibly derives from "the bee's knees"
Senses: examples: text: I left my father's business.
text: 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.
ref: 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:
synonyms: word: business
word: company
word: enterprise
word: firm
glosses: A specific commercial enterprise or establishment.
examples: text: He is in the motor and insurance businesses.
text: I'm going to Las Vegas on business.
glosses: A person's occupation, work, or trade.
examples: text: He's such a poor cook, I can't believe he's still in business!
text: We do business all over the world.
glosses: Commercial, industrial, or professional activity.
examples: text: Business has been slow lately.
text: They did nearly a million dollars of business over the long weekend.
text: 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.
ref: 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:
glosses: The volume or amount of commercial trade.
examples: text: I shall take my business elsewhere.
glosses: One's dealings; patronage.
examples: text: This proposal will satisfy both business and labor.
text: 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.
ref: 2013 August 10, Schumpeter, “Cronies and capitols”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
glosses: Private commercial interests taken collectively.
examples: text: I studied business at Harvard.
glosses: The management of commercial enterprises, or the study of such management.
examples: text: This UFO stuff is a mighty strange business.
text: 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.
ref: [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:
glosses: A particular situation or activity.
examples: text: Our principal business here is to get drunk.
text: Let's get down to business.
text: 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.
ref: 1651, Thomas Hobbes, “Chapter I: Of Sense”, in Leviathanᵂⁱᵏⁱˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ:
glosses: Any activity or objective needing to be dealt with; especially, one of a financial or legal matter.
examples: text: That's none of your business.
text: My work is no business of yours.
synonyms: affair
glosses: Something involving one personally.
examples: text: If that concludes the announcements, we'll move on to new business.
topics: government
parliamentary-procedure
glosses: Matters that come before a body for deliberation or action.
examples: text: Gates, who always flew business or coach, didn't particularly like the high air fares Nishi was charging to Microsoft,[…]
ref: 1992, James Wallace, Jim Erickson, Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, page 154:
topics: lifestyle
tourism
transport
travel
glosses: Business class, the class of seating provided by airlines between first class and coach.
examples: text: The business with the hat is a fine example of the difficulty of distinguishing between 'natural' and 'formal' acting.
ref: 1983, Peter Thomson, Shakespeare's Theatre, →ISBN, page 155:
topics: acting
broadcasting
entertainment
film
lifestyle
media
television
theater
glosses: Ellipsis of stage business (“aspect of acting”).
qualifier: Los Angeles
glosses: Hollywood, the entertainment industry.
raw_tags: with the
glosses: Prostitution.
raw_tags: with the
examples: text: I'm sure his goons will go through the ship like a business of ferrets, and they'll want to look in our baggage.
ref: 2004, Dave Duncan, The Jaguar Knights: A Chronicle of the King's Blades, →ISBN, page 252:
synonyms: fesnyng
glosses: The collective noun for a group of ferrets.
examples: text: These new phones are the business!
glosses: Something very good; top quality.
raw_tags: with the
examples: text: Your ferret left his business all over the floor.
text: As the cart went by, its horse lifted its tail and did its business.
glosses: The act of defecation, or the excrement itself, particularly that of a non-human animal.
examples: text: I haven't seen cartoons giving someone the business since the 1990s.
glosses: Disruptive shenanigans.
examples: text: sorry business
translation: a funeral
english: a funeral
qualifier: Australian Aboriginal
glosses: Matters.
Derived terms: agribusiness
agri-business
agrobusiness
agrobusinessman
antibusiness
any other business
bad business
big business
biz
bizfluencer
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-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 formal
business-friendliness
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
business-like
businesslike
business logic
business lunch
businessly
business machine
businessman
business-man
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
pro-business
probusiness
send about one's business
Shoah business
showbiz
show biz
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