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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

busy.

Crowded with business or activities; having a great deal going on.

4 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈbɪz.i/

  1. Crowded with business or activities; having a great deal going on.

    Be careful crossing that busy street.

  2. Engaged with or preoccupied by an activity or person.

    The director cannot see you now: he's busy.
    Her telephone has been busy all day.

  3. Having much work to do; having much to get done.

  4. Having a lot going on; complicated or intricate.

    Flowers, stripes, and checks in the same fabric make for a busy pattern.

  5. Officious; meddling.

Where this word comes from

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.

noun/ˈbɪz.i/

  1. A police officer.

    UK · derogatory · slang
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/ˈbɪz.i/

  1. To make somebody busy or active; to occupy.

    reflexive · transitive · usually
    On my vacation I'll busy myself with gardening.
    The work busied me all afternoon.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English bisien, from Old English bisgian (“to occupy, employ, trouble, afflict”), from Proto-West Germanic *bisīgōn. Cognate with Old Frisian bisgia (“to use”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.