busk

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To play music or perform entertainment in a public place, usually while soliciting money.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To get ready; prepare; equip; dress: as, to busk a fish-hook.
2. To use; employ.
3. To get ready and go; hasten; hurry.
4. n. An obsolete form of bush.
5. To seek; hunt up and down; cast about; beat about.
6. Nautical, to beat to windward along a coast; cruise off and on.
7. n. A stiffened body-garment, as a doublet, corset, or bodice.
8. n. A flexible strip of wood, steel, whalebone, or other stiffening material, placed in the front of stays to keep them in form.
9. n. An Indian feast of first fruits.
10. To cruise as a pirate.
11. To earn a livelihood by going about singing, playing, and selling ballads, or as an acrobat, juggler, etc., in public houses, steamboats, on the street, etc.

Wiktionary

1. n. A strip of metal, whalebone, wood, or other material, worn in the front of a corset to stiffen it.
2. n. by extension A corset.
3. n. obsolete A kind of linen.
4. v. To prepare; to make ready; to array; to dress.
5. v. intransitive To solicit money by entertaining the public in the street or in public transport
6. v. nautical To tack, to cruise about.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A thin, elastic strip of metal, whalebone, wood, or other material, worn in the front of a corset.
2. n. Among the Creek Indians, a feast of first fruits celebrated when the corn is ripe enough to be eaten. The feast usually continues four days. On the first day the new fire is lighted, by friction of wood, and distributed to the various households, an offering of green corn, including an ear brought from each of the four quarters or directions, is consumed, and medicine is brewed from snakeroot. On the second and third days the men physic with the medicine, the women bathe, the two sexes are taboo to one another, and all fast. On the fourth day there are feasting, dancing, and games.
3. v. Scot. & Old Eng. To prepare; to make ready; to array; to dress.
4. v. obsolete To go; to direct one's course.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. play music in a public place and solicit money for it