business

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

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

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The state of being busy or actively employed; diligence; pains.
2. n. Care; anxiety; solicitude; worry.
3. n. A matter or affair that engages a person's attention or requires his care; an affair receiving or requiring attention; specifically, that which busies or occupies one's time, attention, and labor as his chief concern; that which one does for a livelihood; occupation; employment: as, his business was that of a merchant; to carry on the business of agriculture.
4. n. Specifically Mercantile pursuits collectively; employments requiring knowledge of accounts and financial methods; the occupation of conducting trade or monetary transactions of any kind.
5. n. That which is undertaken as a duty or of chief importance, or is set up as a principal purpose or aim.
6. n. Concern; right of action or interposition: as, what business has a man with the disputes of others?
7. n. Affair; point; matter.
8. n. Theat., such preconcerted movements and actions on the stage as going up, crossing over, taking a chair, poking a fire, toying with anything, etc., designed to fill up the action of the play or character, and heighten its effect.
9. n. To ease one's self at stool.
10. Relating to, connected with, or engaged in business, traffic, trade, etc.: as, business habits; business hours; business men.

Wiktionary

1. n. countable A specific commercial enterprise or establishment.
2. n. countable A person's occupation, work, or trade.
3. n. uncountable Commercial, industrial, or professional activity.
4. n. uncountable The volume or amount of commercial trade.
5. n. uncountable One's dealings; patronage.
6. n. uncountable Private commercial interests taken collectively.
7. n. uncountable The management of commercial enterprises, or the study of such management.
8. n. countable A particular situation or activity.
9. n. countable An objective or a matter needing to be dealt with.
10. n. uncountable Something involving one personally.
11. n. uncountable, parliamentary procedure Matters that come before a body for deliberation or action.
12. n. travel, uncountable Business class, the class of seating provided by airlines between first class and coach.
13. n. acting Action carried out with a prop or piece of clothing, usually away from the focus of the scene.
14. n. countable, rare The collective noun for a group of ferrets.
15. n. uncountable, slang, UK Something very good; top quality. (possibly from "the bee's knees")
16. n. slang, uncountable Excrement, particularly that of a non-human animal.
17. adj. Of, to, pertaining to or utilized for purposes of conducting trade, commerce, governance, advocacy or other professional purposes.
18. adj. Professional, businesslike, having concern for good business practice.
19. adj. Supporting business, conducive to the conduct of business.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. That which busies one, or that which engages the time, attention, or labor of any one, as his principal concern or interest, whether for a longer or shorter time; constant employment; regular occupation.
2. n. Any particular occupation or employment engaged in for livelihood or gain, as agriculture, trade, art, or a profession.
3. n. Financial dealings; buying and selling; traffic in general; mercantile transactions.
4. n. That which one has to do or should do; special service, duty, or mission.
5. n. Affair; concern; matter; -- used in an indefinite sense, and modified by the connected words.
6. n. (Drama) The position, distribution, and order of persons and properties on the stage of a theater, as determined by the stage manager in rehearsal.
7. n. obsolete Care; anxiety; diligence.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an immediate objective
2. n. a rightful concern or responsibility
3. n. the volume of commercial activity
4. n. the principal activity in your life that you do to earn money
5. n. the activity of providing goods and services involving financial and commercial and industrial aspects
6. n. business concerns collectively
7. n. incidental activity performed by an actor for dramatic effect
8. n. customers collectively
9. n. a commercial or industrial enterprise and the people who constitute it