Word.ws English Dictionary

go about one's business

go about one's business verb: to attend to one's duties; to do what one would normally be doing if not detained, distracted, etc.

Verb

go about one's business (third-person singular simple present goes about one's business, present participle going about one's business, simple past went about one's business, past participle gone about one's business)

  1. To attend to one's duties; to do what one would normally be doing if not detained, distracted, etc.
    • Calpurnia appeared in the front door and yelled, “Lemonade time! You all get in outa that hot sun ‘fore you fry alive!” Lemonade in the middle of the morning was a summertime ritual. Calpurnia set a pitcher and three glasses on the porch, then went about her business. Being out of Jem’s good graces...1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC
    • Crowds gather on the platform at Birmingham New Street to take photos of D1015, on the 'Pathfinder Finale', as CrossCountry Turbostar 170105 goes about its business alongside.2026 January 21, “Pictorial Feature: Pathfinder Finale”, in RAIL, number 1053, page 25, image caption
  2. To depart; to resume one's usual activities, after being detained, distracted, etc.

Synonyms of go about one's business

Forms of go about one's business

third-person singular presentgoes about one's business
present participlegoing about one's business
pastwent about one's business
past participlegone about one's business

Questions about go about one's business

What does go about one's business mean?
Go about one's business means to attend to one's duties; to do what one would normally be doing if not detained, distracted, etc.
What part of speech is go about one's business?
Go about one's business is a verb.
What is the past tense of go about one's business?
The past tense of go about one's business is went about one's business.

Words near go about one's business in the dictionary

  1. go a long way
  2. go a mucker
  3. go a raker
  4. go a-begging
  5. go about
  6. go about one's business
  7. go about one's day
  8. go about to
  9. go after
  10. go against
  11. go against the grain

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go about one's 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.

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