Word.ws English Dictionary

busy beaver

UK/ˈbɪzi ˈbiːvə//ˈbɪzi ˈbiːvɚ/

busy beaver noun: someone who is very busy or hard-working.

Noun

busy beaver (plural busy beavers)

  1. (informal) Someone who is very busy or hard-working.
    • Wow! Laundry, dishes, and errands, all in one day? You've been a busy beaver.
    Synonyms:
    busy bee
  2. A Turing machine that attains the maximum number of steps performed, or number of non-blank symbols finally on the tape, among all Turing machines in a certain class.

Synonyms of busy beaver

Forms of busy beaver

pluralbusy beavers

Words formed from busy beaver

Questions about busy beaver

What does busy beaver mean?
Busy beaver means someone who is very busy or hard-working.
What part of speech is busy beaver?
Busy beaver is a noun.
How do you pronounce busy beaver?
Busy beaver is pronounced /ˈbɪzi ˈbiːvə/ (UK).
What is the plural of busy beaver?
The plural of busy beaver is busy beavers.

Words near busy beaver in the dictionary

  1. busy as a bee
  2. busy as a dyke in a hardware store
  3. busy as a nailer
  4. busy as a one-armed paper hanger
  5. busy as a one-armed paperhanger
  6. busy beaver
  7. busy beaver function
  8. busy beaver functions
  9. busy beavers
  10. busy bee
  11. busy bees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: busy beaver (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-busy beaver.wav.

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