| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| business |
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| SYLLABICATION: | busi·ness |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  b z ns |
| NOUN: | 1a. The occupation, work, or trade in which a person is engaged: the wholesale food business. b. 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. 6a. One's rightful or proper concern or interest: “The business of America is business” (Calvin Coolidge). b. 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. | | 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.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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