Word.ws English Dictionary

business-as-usual

business-as-usual is the alternative form of business as usual.

Meaning of business as usual

Phrase

business as usual

  1. (idiomatic) The normal course of an activity, particularly in circumstances that are out of the ordinary.
    • The phase^([sic]) “Business as Usual” ran about the world, and the papers abounded in articles in which going on as though there was no war at all was demonstrated to be the truest form of patriotism. […] “Business as usual during Alterations to the Map of Europe” was the advertisement of one...1916, H. G. Wells, “Onlookers”, in Mr. Britling Sees It Through, New York: Macmillan, Book II, page 214
  2. (idiomatic) The normal execution of standard functional operations within an organisation, particularly in contrast to a project or program which would introduce change (although that change may itself become business as usual).

See all 3 meanings of business as usual

Questions about business-as-usual

What is business-as-usual the alternative form of?
Business-as-usual is the alternative form of business as usual.

Words near business-as-usual in the dictionary

  1. business trip
  2. business trips
  3. business unit
  4. business venture
  5. business ventures
  6. business-as-usual
  7. business-casual
  8. business-critical
  9. business-friendliness
  10. business-friendly
  11. business-like

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: business-as-usual (page history and authors); business as usual (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.

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