busy
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From Middle English bisy, busie, from Old English bisiġ (“busy, occupied, diligent”), from Proto-West Germanic *bisīg (“diligent; zealous; busy”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian biesich (“active, diligent, hard-working, industrious”), Dutch bezig (“busy”), Low German besig (“busy”). The spelling with ⟨u⟩ represents the pronunciation of the West Midland and Southern dialects while the Modern English pronunciation with /ɪ/ is from the dialects of the East Midlands.
Inflected forms:
form: busier
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: busiest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: busie
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: busies
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: busie
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: busies
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: busying
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: busied
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: busied
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Crowded with business or activities; having a great deal going on.
pos: adj
examples: Be careful crossing that busy street.
To-morrow is a busy day.
Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were.[…]They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute.
With hours to go before their labor contract expired, longshoremen on the East and Gulf Coasts prepared on Monday to go on strike at midnight, halting most activity at some of the busiest U.S. ports.
gloss: Engaged with or preoccupied by an activity or person.
pos: adj
examples: The director cannot see you now: he's busy.
Her telephone has been busy all day.
He is busy with piano practice.
Ramzi is busy getting ready for meetings.
Go away, I’m busy sleeping!
And the first thing I did was to lay by a certain quantity of provisions, being the stores for our voyage; and intended in a week or a fortnight’s time to open the dock, and launch out our boat. I was busy one morning upon something of this kind, when I called to Friday, and bid him to go to the sea-shore and see if he could find a turtle or a tortoise, a thing which we generally got once a week, for the sake of the eggs as well as the flesh.
But to return to Friday; he was so busy about his father that I could not find in my heart to take him off for some time; but after I thought he could leave him a little, I called him to me, and he came jumping and laughing, and pleased to the highest extreme: then I asked him if he had given his father any bread.
After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know anything about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that it was time to be at home.
His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.
In fact she was so busy doing all the things that anyone might, who finds themselves alone in an empty house, that she did not notice at first when it began to turn dusk and the rooms to grow dim.
These days, as people get busier and busier, many are skipping the tamale making and just cooking up this thick polentalike soup.
It may get even busier in town when a sleek train service called the Brightline debuts this summer, shuttling travelers between nearby West Palm Beach and Miami.
gloss: Having much work to do; having much to get done.
pos: adj
examples: Near-synonym: swamped
Finding the time to work out and cook healthy meals is easily pushed to the wayside in our ordinary, busy lives.
gloss: Having a lot going on; complicated or intricate.
pos: adj
examples: Flowers, stripes, and checks in the same fabric make for a busy pattern.
gloss: Officious; meddling.
pos: adj
examples: 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.
gloss: A police officer.
pos: noun
tags: UK
derogatory
slang
examples: I remember playing on a building site once and coming across a five-pound note. I could hardly believe it when I spotted it poking out of the rubble. Excitedly, I ran straight home and gave it to my mum. I was hero of the hour until I got into trouble with the busies – the police – soon afterwards for pinching a bottle of milk from a float.
gloss: To make somebody busy or active; to occupy.
pos: verb
tags: reflexive
transitive
usually
examples: On my vacation I'll busy myself with gardening.
The work busied me all afternoon.
They busied themselves with the tea.
Synonyms: swamped
Derived words: busihead
busily
business
busy as a beaver
busy as a bee
busy as a dyke in a hardware store
busy as a nailer
busy as a one-armed paperhanger
busy as a one-armed paper hanger
busy beaver
busy beaver function
busy bee
busy board
busybody
busy body
busy book
busy box
busyish
busy little beaver
busy loop
busyness
busy-ness
busy signal
busy wait
busy work
busy-work
embusy
ever-busy
fast busy signal
get busy
I'm busy
keep someone busy
nonbusy
semibusy
superbusy
the line is busy
underbusy
Wheal Busy
Translations: