business
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Middle English busines, busynes, businesse, bisynes, from Old English bisiġnes (“business, busyness”), equivalent to busy + -ness. Doublet of busyness.
Pronunciation
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 LeviathanWikisource:
- 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.
- (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
- 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
- business-like
- businesslike
- business logic
- business lunch
- businessly
- business machine
- businessman
- business-man
- business man
- business model
- business name
- businessness
- business object
- 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
- 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
Descendants
- Tok Pisin: bisnis
- → Albanian: biznes
- → Belarusian: бі́знэс (bíznes)
- → Bulgarian: би́знес (bíznes)
- → Czech: business, byznys
- → Dutch: business
- → 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)
- → Slovak: biznis
- → Spanish: bisnes
- → Tatar: business
- → Ukrainian: бі́знес (bíznes)
- → Welsh: busnes
Translations
commercial enterprise or establishment
|
occupation, work or trade of a person
|
commercial, industrial or professional activity
|
volume or amount of commercial trade
private commercial interests taken collectively
management of commercial enterprises
|
particular situation or activity
objective or a matter needing to be dealt with
something involving one personally
|
matters that come before a body for deliberation or action
business class
action carried out with a prop or piece of clothing
|
collective noun for a group of ferrets
- 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.
- 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.
- Professional, businesslike, having concern for good business practice.
- 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
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
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