Etymologically
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business

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈbɪz.nɪs/, /ˈbɪz.nəs/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bisinesse,[2] inherited from Old English bisiġnis (“care, anxiety”),[3][4][5] formed from Old English bisiġ (“careful, anxious, busy”) + -nis,[6][7] that is, from busy and -ness.[8][2] It was pronounced with three syllables in Middle English; the present two-syllable form developed in the 17th century.[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Anxiety, care, distress (Old English, about 950).[6][9]

Semantic evolution

Hendrickson notes that all the earliest uses express anxiety or uneasiness.[10] From Middle English until the 18th century the main sense was “the state of being busy”,[11][12] and the word also meant diligence and officious meddling.[9][3] The sense “a person's work or occupation” appears before 1387 in Trevisa's translation of Higden,[13] and “a duty, a task” in the late 14th century;[7] the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins and the New Oxford see these senses as the source of all the current ones.[11][12] The meaning “trade, commercial dealings” is dated 1478 by the HTOED and 1727 by Etymonline.[14][7] Once business had lost its link with busy, the 19th century made the new form busyness for the old sense.[11][7] In the 17th century business could also mean sexual intercourse.[7][15] Many phrases are recorded early: mind one's own business (1620s), business card (1840), mean business (1856) and business as usual (1865).[7]

Timeline

  • c. 950 – Old English bisiġnis, anxiety.[6][9]
  • c. 1350 – diligence, industry (obsolete).[9]
  • before 1387 – a person's occupation (Trevisa).[13]
  • 1478 – trade and commercial activity.[14]
  • 1590s – what one is doing at the moment.[7]
  • 1611 – dealings with someone, as in no business with.[14]
  • 1611 – (slang) sexual intercourse.[15]
  • 1620s – mind one's own business.[7]
  • 1727 – trade, commercial engagements collectively.[7]
  • 1840 – business card.[7]
  • 1856 – to mean business.[7]
  • 1874 – business end (American).[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A person's regular occupation or trade.
  2. Commercial activity; buying and selling.
  3. A commercial organization; a firm.
  4. The amount of trade done: business is slow.
  5. Something that is one's proper concern: none of your business.
  6. Work to be done or matters to be dealt with.
  7. An affair or matter: a strange business.
  8. (theatre) Actions other than speech performed by an actor.
  9. (British informal) The business, an excellent person or thing.

Usage notes

The American Heritage Dictionary distinguishes business, the broadest term for commercial, financial and industrial activity, from industry (making goods, especially on a large scale), commerce and trade (exchanging and distributing goods) and traffic (especially transporting goods or passengers).[8] Random House lists calling, vocation and employment as synonyms of the sense “occupation”.[16]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  9. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
  11. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  13. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  14. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  15. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  16. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House