business

Syllables: busi·ness/ˈbɪz.nɪs/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Southern US/ˈbɪz.nɪs/

business noun: a specific commercial enterprise or establishment. Also the ellipsis of stage business.

Noun

business (countable and uncountable, plural businesses)

(countable) A specific commercial enterprise or establishment.
- I left my father's business.
- The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them, which is then licensed to related businesses in high-tax countries, is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies.2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68
Synonyms:

company, enterprise, firm
(countable) A person's occupation, work, or trade.
- He is in the motor and insurance businesses.
- I'm going to Las Vegas on business.
(uncountable) Commercial, industrial, or professional activity.
- He's such a poor cook, I can't believe he's still in business!
- We do business all over the world.
(uncountable) The volume or amount of commercial trade.
- Business has been slow lately.
- They did nearly a million dollars of business over the long weekend.
(uncountable) One's dealings; patronage.
- I shall take my business elsewhere.
(uncountable) Private commercial interests taken collectively.
- This proposal will satisfy both business and labor.
- Policing the relationship between government and business in a free society is difficult. Businesspeople have every right to lobby governments, and civil servants to take jobs in the private sector.2013 August 10, Schumpeter, “Cronies and capitols”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848
(uncountable) The management of commercial enterprises, or the study of such management.
- I studied business at Harvard.
(countable) A particular situation or activity.
- This UFO stuff is a mighty strange business.
- The wolde ſome mayſter perhappes clowt ye / But as for me ye nede nat doute ye / For I had leuer be without ye / Then haue ſuche beſyneſſe aboute ye.[1545?], John Heywood, The Playe Called The Foure PP […], London: […] Wyllyam Myddylton, →OCLC; reprinted as John S. Farmer, editor, The Play Called The Four PP […] (The Tudor Facsimile Texts)...
(countable) Any activity or objective needing to be dealt with; especially, one of a financial or legal matter.
- Our principal business here is to get drunk.
- Let's get down to business.
(uncountable) Something involving one personally.
- That's none of your business.
- My work is no business of yours.
Synonyms:

affair
(uncountable) Matters that come before a body for deliberation or action.
- If that concludes the announcements, we'll move on to new business.
(uncountable) Business class, the class of seating provided by airlines between first class and coach.
- Gates, who always flew business or coach, didn't particularly like the high air fares Nishi was charging to Microsoft,[…]1992, James Wallace, Jim Erickson, Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, page 154

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(informal, Los Angeles) Hollywood, the entertainment industry.
(slang) Prostitution.
(collective, countable, rare) A group of ferrets.
- I'm sure his goons will go through the ship like a business of ferrets, and they'll want to look in our baggage.2004, Dave Duncan, The Jaguar Knights: A Chronicle of the King's Blades, →ISBN, page 252
- "Aye!" Fisher roared in glee. "A whole business of 'em! Better yet—an army of 'em! And there's more."1999, Joanne Bertin, Dragon and Phoenix, page 123
Synonyms:

fesnyng
(UK, slang) Something very good; top quality.
- These new phones are the business!
(slang, uncountable) The act of defecation, or the excrement itself, particularly that of a non-human animal.
- Your ferret left his business all over the floor.
- As the cart went by, its horse lifted its tail and did its business.
(slang) Disruptive shenanigans.
(Australian Aboriginal) Matters.
- sorry business

Adjective

business

Of, to, pertaining to, or used for purposes of conducting trade, commerce, governance, advocacy or other professional purposes.
- Please do not use this phone for personal calls; it is a business phone.
- They are solely business instruments. Every man's relation to them is purely a business relation. His use of them is purely a business use.1897, Reform Club (New York, N.Y.) Sound Currency Committee, Sound Currency, volumes 4-5, page cclii
Professional, businesslike, having concern for good business practice.
- He is thoroughly business, but has the happy faculty of transacting it in a genial and courteous manner.1889, The Clothier and furnisher, volume 19, page 38
- […] and the transaction carried through in a thoroughly business manner.1909, Business Administration: Business Practice, La Salle Extension University, page 77
Supporting business, conducive to the conduct of business.
- Amiens is a thoroughly business town, the business being chiefly with the flax-works.1867, “Amiens”, in Edmund Hodgson Yates, editor, Tinsley's Magazine, page 430
- According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal...2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55

Also used as

business is also the ellipsis of stage business.

business meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

business in Hindi

commercial enterprise or establishment: व्यापार vyāpār, व्यवसाय vyavasāy, वाणिज्य vāṇijya
occupation, work or trade of a person: व्यापार vyāpār, व्यवसाय vyavsāy, वाणिज्य vāṇijya
commercial, industrial or professional activity: वाणिज्यिक vāṇijyik

business in Marathi

commercial enterprise or establishment: व्यापार vyāpār, व्यवसाय vyavsāy
occupation, work or trade of a person: उद्योग udyog, व्यवसाय vyavsāy, पेशा peśā
commercial, industrial or professional activity: उद्योगधंदा udyogdhandā

business in Urdu

commercial enterprise or establishment: کاروبار kārobār, وْیاپار vyāpār, شِرْکَت śirkat

business in Bengali

commercial enterprise or establishment: ব্যবসা bêbśa, কারবার karbar

More languagesFewer languages

business in Telugu: వ్యాపారము vyāpāramu
business in Sinhala: ව්යාපාර wyāpāra
business in Tagalog: negosyo
business in Arabic: شَرِكَة šarika, عَمَل ʕamal, تِجَارَة tijāra, مَشْرُوع mašrūʕ
business in Malay: perniagaan
business in Indonesian: perusahaan, pekerjaan, jualan, penjualan
business in Thai: ธุรกิจ tú-rá-gìt, บริษัท bɔɔ-rí-sàt, กงกาง gong-gaang
business in Vietnamese: doanh nghiệp, doanh thương
business in Myanmar: ကုမ္ပဏီ kumpa.ni, စီးပွားရေးလုပ်ငန်း ci:pwa:re:lupngan:, အလုပ် a.lup, လုပ်ငန်း lupngan:

Examples of business in a sentence

That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:
To know the naturall cause of Sense, is not very necessary to the business now in hand; and I have els-where written of the same at large.1651, Thomas Hobbes, “Chapter I: Of Sense”, in Leviathanᵂⁱᵏⁱˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ:
It is endangered because of the very small populations which are cut off from other "businesses."2022, Barbara Stotts Cochran, Our Educational System Flipped Upside Down: Teaching Reading to Reduce the Negative Effects of School...
[…] the fact that the injured party came to the insured premises for solely business purposes precluded any reliance on the non-business pursuits exception (§ 1 1 2[b]).1996, Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, American Law Reports: Annotations and Cases, volume 35, page 432:

All 40 example sentences with business

Synonyms of business

All synonyms of business

Forms of business

plural	businesses
alternative clipping	biz
alternative African-American-Vernacular-English pronunciation-spelling	bizness
alternative African-American-Vernacular-English Southern pronunciation-spelling	bidness
alternative form (obsolete)	bisoness
alternative form (obsolete)	businesse
alternative form (obsolete)	busynesse

Plural of business: businesses

Origin of business

From Middle English busines, busynes, businesse, bisynes, from Old English bisiġnes (“business, busyness”), equivalent to busy + -ness. Doublet of busyness. Sense 17 (something very good, top quality), possibly derives from "the bee's knees"

Words formed from business

Phrases with business

151 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with business

bizness

Questions about business

What does business mean?: Business means a specific commercial enterprise or establishment.
What is business in Hindi?: Business in Hindi is व्यापार (vyāpār), व्यवसाय (vyavasāy), वाणिज्य (vāṇijya). See Business meaning in Hindi.
How do you use business in a sentence?: That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.
What part of speech is business?: Business can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce business?: Business is pronounced /ˈbɪz.nɪs/.
What is the plural of business?: The plural of business is businesses.

Words near business in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: business (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-business.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-business.wav.

Cite this entry: “business.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/business. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.