Definition of business

< bushy

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busi·ness    (bzns) KEY 

NOUN:

1. 1. The occupation, work, or trade in which a person is engaged: the wholesale food business.
   2. A specific occupation or pursuit: the best designer in the business.
2. Commercial, industrial, or professional dealings: new systems now being used in business.
3. A commercial enterprise or establishment: bought his uncle's business.
4. Volume or amount of commercial trade: Business had fallen off.
5. Commercial dealings; patronage: took her business to a trustworthy salesperson.
6. 1. One's rightful or proper concern or interest: "The business of America is business" (Calvin Coolidge).
   2. Something involving one personally: It's none of my business.
7. Serious work or endeavor: got right down to business.
8. An affair or matter: "We will proceed no further in this business" (Shakespeare).
9. An incidental action performed by an actor on the stage to fill a pause between lines or to provide interesting detail.
10. Informal Verbal abuse; scolding: gave me the business for being late.
11. Obsolete The condition of being busy.

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ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English businesse, from bisi, busy ; see busy

SYNONYMS:
business, industry, commerce, trade, traffic

These nouns apply to forms of activity that have the objective of supplying commodities. Business pertains broadly to commercial, financial, and industrial activity: decided to go into the oil business. Industry entails the production and manufacture of goods or commodities, especially on a large scale: the computer industry. Commerce and trade refer to the exchange and distribution of goods or commodities: laws regulating interstate commerce; involved in the domestic fur trade. Traffic pertains in particular to businesses engaged in the transportation of goods or passengers: renovated the docks to attract shipping traffic. The word may also suggest illegal trade: discovered a brisk traffic in stolen goods. See also Synonyms at affair.