Search the Dictionary

To possess or use the time or capacity of; to engage the service of; to employ; to busy. An archbishop may have cause to occupy more chaplains than six. Eng. Statute (Hen. VIII. ) They occupied themselves about the Sabbath. 2 Macc. viii. 27.

Too busy; too ready to intermeddle; too officious. Collier.

To do a small business; to be busy about trifles; to piddle.

e; to pick a pocket. Did you pick Master Slender's purse Shak. He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet. Cowper.

Overbusy; officious. [R.] Heywood.

The state of being overbusy. [R.]

To busy one's self with trifles; to labor with little purpose, energy, of effect; to trifle; to pother. Pottering about the Mile End cottages. Mrs. Humphry Ward.

Busy; specifically, busy in an objectionable way; officious; fussy and positive; meddlesome. "Pragmatical officers of justice." Sir W. Scott. The fellow grew so pragmatical that he took upon him the government of my whole family. Arbuthnot.

To act as a prelate. [Obs.] Right prelating is busy laboring, and not lording. Latimer.

overb; hence, commonly; universally; as, it is proverbially said; the bee is proverbially busy.

; not thoroughly cooked; underdone; as, rare beef or mutton. New-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy care Turned by a gentle fire, and roasted rare. Dryden.

Low; base; mean; filthy; obscene. The busy day, Waked by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows. Shak.

ll spread out and form a second head; a pin or bolt headed or clinched at both ends. With busy hammers closing rivets up. Shak. Rivet joint, or Riveted joint, a joint between two or more pieces secured by rivets.

tten on a piece of parchment, paper, or other materials which may be rolled up; a scroll. Busy angels spread The lasting roll, recording what we say. Prior.

humble. [Obs.] A fourth man, in a sillyhabit. Shak. All that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. Milton.

To be in motion; to be active or bustling; to exert or busy one's self. All are not fit with them to stir and toil. Byron. The friends of the unfortunate exile, far from resenting his unjust suspicions, were stirring anxiously in his behalf. Merivale.

active; active in business; habitually employed in some kind of business; accustomed to a busy life. A more stirring and intellectual age than any which had gone before it. Southey.

ry bumpkin. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.] "Country swains, and silly swads." Greene. There was one busy fellow was their leader, A blunt, squat swad, but lower than yourself. B. Jonson.

To meddle; to be busy; to try little experiments; as, to tamper with a disease. 'T is dangerous tampering with a muse. Roscommon.

Thronged; crowded; also, much occupied; busy. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.] Bp. Sanderson. To the intent the sick . . . should not lie too throng. Robynson (More's Utopia).