Noun
bustle (countable and uncountable, plural bustles)
- (countable, uncountable) An excited activity; a stir.
1748, David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral., London: Oxford University Press, published 1973, § 34:we are, perhaps, all the while flattering our natural indolence, which, hating the bustle of the world, and drudgery of business seeks a pretence of reason to give itself a full and uncontrolled indulgence.
1755, Adam Fitz-Adam, The World, number CXXI, London, page 789:In the midſt of all this buſtle, I was ſtruck with the appearance of a large bevy of beauties and women of the firſt fashion, who with all the perfect confidence of good breeding, inſhrined themſelves in the ſeveral temples dedicated to the Cyprian Venus[.]
- (computing, countable) A cover to protect and hide the back panel of a computer or other office machine.
- (historical, countable) A frame worn underneath a woman's skirt, typically only protruding from the rear as opposed to the earlier more circular hoops.
2006, Peter Godwin, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa:All the portraits that hang on the walls of the living room are, I realize, of my mother's family: miniatures of her great-aunts in Victorian bustles and elaborate feathered hats; a gilt-framed oil of her great-great-great-uncle as a boy in pastoral England, wearing a gold riding coat over white jodhpurs and sitting astride a white steed, a King Charles spaniel yapping at them from the foreground of the canvas.
Translations
excited activity
- Arabic:
- Moroccan Arabic: روينة f (rwīna)
- Armenian: իրարանցում (hy) (irarancʻum)
- Bulgarian: суетня (bg) f (suetnja)
- Catalan: bullícia f
- Finnish: vilinä (fi), vilske (fi), kihinä, touhu (fi), hyörintä (fi), säpinä
- French: affairement (fr) m, branlebas (fr) m, remue-ménage (fr) m, agitation (fr) f
- German: Hektik (de)
- Italian: viavai (it) m, andirivieni (it) m
- Latvian: rosme f, možums m
- Maori: pōwaiwai
- Norman: tinné m
- Norwegian: travelhet (no)
- Polish: bieganina (pl) f
- Portuguese: freneticidade (pt) f
- Romanian: freamăt (ro)
- Russian: переполо́х (ru) m (perepolóx), суета́ (ru) f (sujetá), сумато́ха (ru) f (sumatóxa)
- Spanish: ajetreo (es) m
- Walloon: rimowe-manaedje (wa) m
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cover to protect and hide the back panel of a computer or other office machine
frame worn underneath a woman's skirt
Verb
bustle (third-person singular simple present bustles, present participle bustling, simple past and past participle bustled)
- To move busily and energetically with fussiness (often followed by about).
The commuters bustled about inside the train station.
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 3, member 6:I was once so mad to bussell abroad, and seek about for preferment […].
- To teem or abound (usually followed by with); to exhibit an energetic and active abundance (of a thing).
The train station was bustling with commuters.
- (transitive) To push around, to importune.
1981, A. D. Hope, “His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell”, in A Book of Answers:Don’t bustle her or fuss or snatch: / A suitor looking at his watch / Is not a posture that persuades / Willing, much less reluctant maids.
Translations
to move busily and energetically
References
bustle in Merriam-Webster Dictionary