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What is "business"

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business
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
business
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a business appointment
▪ Dennis had an early-morning business appointment with a client.
a business centre
▪ The company has branches worldwide in fifteen major business centres.
a business client
▪ Competition for business clients between travel companies is keen.
a business customer (=customers that are businesses)
▪ the bank’s major business customers
a business deal
▪ He lost a fortune in an unwise business deal.
a business letter
▪ In business letters you often use phrases such as ‘I would be grateful if ...’.
a business loan (=money lent to a business)
▪ The bank offers a range of business loans to meet the needs of small businesses.
a business meeting
▪ He had to go into town for a business meeting.
a business perspective
▪ I think it was a good thing to do, from a business perspective.
a business plan
▪ We’ve developed a business plan to take over the company.
a business proposition
▪ Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about my business proposition?
a business strategy
▪ This is a high-risk business strategy.
a business trip
▪ I’m on a business trip with my boss.
a business/economic/election etc cycle (=related events in business, the economy etc that repeat themselves over a certain period)
▪ the presidential election cycle
a business/financial/media etc empire
▪ His business empire is now worth over $20 billion.
a business/professional relationship
▪ Both companies want to continue their business relationship into the future.
a business/working lunch (=a lunch during which you also do business)
▪ She was having a business lunch with a customer.
a commercial/business enterprise
▪ If you are setting up your own business enterprise, your bank can help.
a company goes bankrupt/goes out of business (=stops doing business after losing too much money)
a family business (=one run by members of a family)
▪ My parents expected me to join the family business.
a financial/business/commercial district (=where there are a lot of banks and other businesses)
▪ He works in San Francisco’s financial district.
a struggling artist/writer/business
a ticklish business
▪ Handling awkward neighbours can be a ticklish business.
a union/business leader
▪ Business leaders welcomed a cut in the interest rate.
a viable business
▪ He turned the farm into a viable business.
an economic/military/business/political etc objective
▪ We have made good progress towards meeting our business objectives.
big business
▪ Dieting has become big business.
business card
business class
business confidence (=that businesses have when the economic situation is good)
▪ The region has gained 46,000 jobs and business confidence is high.
business end
▪ the business end of a gun
business expertise (=skill at operating a business or company)
▪ The company took him on for his business expertise.
business hours
business park
business person
business plan
business school
business sense (=an ability to make good decisions in business)
▪ Few young people have much business sense.
business software
▪ He has been training people in the use of business software since 1983.
business studies
business suit
business travel
▪ Business travel often took him away from his family.
business users
▪ The hotel caters mainly to business users.
Business...booming
▪ Business was booming, and money wasn’t a problem.
business/commercial activity
▪ Internet shopping is a rapidly developing area of business activity.
business/commercial expansion
▪ These new measures could limit business expansion.
business/commercial instinct
▪ I have faith in your business instinct.
business/commercial venture
business/political/financial etc acumen
▪ The firm’s success is largely due to Brannon’s commercial acumen.
catering business/service etc
combine business with pleasure (=work and enjoy yourself at the same time)
conduct (a) business
▪ The company had been conducting a lot of business in Latin America.
cross-border trade/business etc
do business (=buy and sell goods, or provide services)
▪ The company does a lot of business in China.
drum up business (=get more work and sales)
▪ The organization is using the event to drum up business.
economic/industrial/business etc development
▪ The US has been keen to encourage economic development in Egypt.
entertainment/business expenses
▪ The president receives an unspecified allowance for business and entertainment expenses.
for business/research etc purposes
▪ About one in five of all trips are made for business purposes.
from an economic/financial/business point of view
▪ From a financial point of view, the concert was a disaster.
funny business
▪ Remember, Marvin, no funny business while we’re out.
going about their business
▪ The villagers were going about their business as usual.
going into business (=starting a business)
▪ She’s thinking of going into business.
investment/financial/business analyst
▪ Cleary has been working as a computer analyst in Winchester.
laborious process/task/business etc
▪ Collecting the raw materials proved a long and laborious task.
▪ the laborious business of drying the crops
line of work/business
▪ What line of business is he in?
lucrative business/market/contract etc
▪ He inherited a lucrative business from his father.
media/property/business/newspaper tycoon
▪ a multi-millionaire property tycoon
mix business with pleasure (=combine business and social activities at the same time)
▪ I don’t like to mix business with pleasure.
open for business
▪ After the security alert, most of the firms affected were open for business on Monday morning.
pitch for business/contracts/custom etc
▪ Booksellers are keen to pitch for school business.
professional/business/medical ethics (=the moral rules relating to a particular profession)
▪ public concern about medical ethics
▪ a code of ethics
risky business
▪ Buying a secondhand car is a risky business.
sb’s business affairs
▪ After dad retired, I managed his estate and business affairs.
sb’s work/business/school address
▪ I sent the letter to her work address.
▪ My business address is on my card.
show business
▪ Phyllis always wanted to be in show business.
sordid business/affair/story etc
▪ The whole sordid affair came out in the press.
▪ She discovered the truth about his sordid past.
▪ I want to hear all the sordid details!
sports/style/business/travel etc section (=particular part of a newspaper)
start a business/company/firm etc
▪ She wanted to start her own catering business.
study law/business/history etc (=study a subject at a school or university)
▪ Anna is studying French literature.
talk sport/politics/business etc
▪ ‘Let’s not talk politics now,’ said Hugh impatiently.
the business environment
▪ In today’s fast-moving business environment, companies must be flexible.
the business/financial side
▪ Geller handles the business side of things.
the business/scientific/academic etc community
▪ The idea has received intense interest from the business community.
the entertainment business/industry
▪ The union represents people who work in the entertainment industry.
the health/business/money etc aspect
▪ the health aspects of chemical accidents
▪ I’m not very interested in the business aspect.
the retail trade/business
▪ a manager with twenty years’ experience in the retail business
theatre/business etc people (=people who work or are involved in the theatre etc)
▪ The hotel was full of business people.
tout for business/customBritish English (= look for customers)
▪ Minicab drivers are not allowed to tout for business.
urgent business
▪ Nenna told them that she had urgent business on the other side of London.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
big
▪ It is rare for any big business to take initiatives like that on its own.
▪ Nevertheless, in I978 on Wall Street it was flaky to think that home mortgages could be big business.
▪ Ocean racing is big business involving vast amounts of money.
▪ This is big business, after all.
▪ By the beginning of the present decade tourism was very big business indeed.
▪ Some will resign from big business and devote themselves to turning an idea or hobby into a business of their own.
▪ We are probably also acquainted with examples where local and national government, large and big business impinge on the local community.
▪ The city was quickly becoming a center of big money and business, both legal and illegal.
local
▪ It's hoped that more cameras will be installed, financed by local businesses.
▪ A silent auction featured many items donated by local businesses.
▪ They would co-ordinate the work of government and council agencies, local businesses, churches and voluntary groups.
▪ By breaking through regulatory barriers, it is seeking to enter the local telephone business.
▪ Second, local firms paid business rates on their property.
▪ It does no harm to write to the nearest local residents and businesses, but generally this is a long shot.
▪ All the students are undertaking work placements in local businesses one day a week for 12 weeks.
new
▪ The Conference Board, a New York-based business research group, held a major diversity conference this spring.
▪ Or a trade may be used not to do new business, but to transfer a credit balance between accounts.
▪ He explained his plans for his new business.
▪ Our recent run of outstanding new business figures will continue to provide a growing quality earnings stream for many years to come.
▪ In July, Lloyds Abbey Life posted first-half new business figures that were better than many of its competitors.
▪ All new businesses have to spend heavily to establish themselves.
▪ Any new business venture takes time to establish.-Sufficient working capital to survive.
serious
▪ Government is a serious business, and his Liberal Democrats are in no way ready for it.
▪ It is easy to laugh, but it is serious business.
▪ Buying a home, although a serious business, can be straight forward, even fun.
▪ For them the climb was a serious business.
▪ But it would not be polite to get down to such serious business as soon as the chief appeared.
▪ Quality is a serious and difficult business.
▪ Save yourself for the serious business of eating. 7 Treat alcohol with care.
▪ At the networks, a rigid line separated news from entertainment; news was considered serious and important business.
small
▪ As a result of the research, it was clear that there was some discrimination against small businesses in West Belfast.
▪ But it also is threatening the livelihoods of many small business operators in San Diego and elsewhere.
▪ After a short while he identified a small bacon-curing business that he felt was worth investing in.
▪ According to Cox, nearly one job is lost among subcontractors and small service businesses for every manufacturing job that goes away.
▪ I understand why the Government have maintained an exemption for small businesses, for which survival is of the essence.
▪ He runs City Hall like a small family business and keeps everybody on a short rein.
▪ This may help to explain the difficulty faced in involving small businesses in partnership activities.
▪ Frequently neither of these strategies will be practical for smaller businesses.
whole
▪ The whole business of eating out in restaurants she considered a worryingly overrated activity.
▪ Up to now, Vyner has been joint managing director of the whole business, along with David Quarmby.
▪ This turnabout is affecting the whole ski business in Britain, not least the magazines.
▪ I can understand why the whole phlogiston business would have been thought less than important in practical terms.
▪ How you must hate this whole business!
▪ I was so focused on setting the business up, I forgot I was a key to the whole business.
▪ It's the end of the whole business.
▪ The whole business with what happened to the baseball cards.
■ NOUN
activity
▪ The only stipulation is that the topic must have some relationship to business activity or current affairs.
▪ These relate to her previous business activities in the gas industry, which she now says she is reforming.
▪ Other business activity also is stirring on the commercial half of the 60-acre Town Center site, Malone said.
▪ These total plans are made up from the individual plans of every business activity of the corporation.
▪ Selling an invention, or even suppressing one, is quite as legal as your own business activities.
▪ Floirat is survived by a daughter and a grandson, who has assumed some of his business activities.
▪ Advocates argue that the absence of burdensome regulatory restrictions would stimulate new business activity.
community
▪ Some members of the government and the business community are sceptical regarding the act's real benefits to the country.
▪ Neighborhood leaders remembered other times the white business community pursued its dreams without regard for the people who lived nearby.
▪ Performance is relatively easy to measure and understand in the business community.
▪ But opposition from the business community to increasing the minimum wage is already in place.
▪ But last night a spokesman for the Portadown business community pledged that life would go on despite the outrage.
▪ Meanwhile, however, the business community has come out four-square behind the reforms.
▪ We want an agreement that promotes business and does not impose burdens or barriers upon the business community.
▪ It is thus far the most widely accepted approach in the business community.
core
▪ Our strategy is to focus all our resources on the two core businesses of spirits and beers.
▪ PSINet has said it wants to pare back to its core business of providing Internet access to business.
▪ Astra makes more sense as a public company than the Salim Group, mainly because its core businesses are obvious and integrated.
▪ Additionally, entire segments of some companies will be eliminated as companies identify and refocus on their core business.
▪ The supermarkets then found that they could charge bigger margins on goods that were peripheral to their core business, processed foods.
▪ One of its core businesses was renting telephones.
▪ Meeting customer needs' Unlike many of our competitors, the provision of credit information has always been our core business.
▪ The findings indicate why groups such as the Pearl are finding it heavy going in their core business activity.
deal
▪ Negotiation is at the heart of all big business deals and even the little ones too.
▪ In February 1994, the investigation was broadened to other Symington business deals.
▪ With a contented sigh, he lost himself in a colourful reverie of big business deals and boardroom power games.
▪ I would not borrow money for a business deal even if it might be profitable.
▪ A chance, too, perhaps, to sort out the business deal they had talked about last week.
▪ Clarisa had told me her father was upset because some one had cheated him on a business deal.
▪ Though his early death traumatised Pierre, his shrewd business deals secured the family a $ 1m fortune.
▪ The Clintons have taken a terrible pounding for their ethics, their business deals, their often-unfortunate choice of allies.
development
▪ The company will maintain a strategic manufacturing agreement with the startup and joint business development arrangements.
▪ Matthew Lutz, 61, vice chairman and business development manager of Magnum, who held a similar position with Hunter.
▪ The business development function is one way to increase a company's ability to seize opportunities.
▪ Quarmby will now be responsible for business development and managing director of group services, coordinating services to all group companies.
▪ Managers can gauge the clarity of focus in a business development group by carrying out a simple exercise.
▪ They found their champion in Wayne Rowley, who was then the director of new business development for the chamber.
▪ If your business card says business development, what should you do all day?
▪ From that site, the company said, it will also manage worldwide drug regulatory affairs, business development and international marketing.
leader
▪ This poses a conundrum for businesses leaders wanting to take advantage of, for example, the Research and Development tax credit.
▪ Consider the last time up-and-coming business leaders from the Young Presidents Organization made a group trip here.
▪ Falun Gong's decision to stage demonstrations here has created a vexing dilemma for Hong Kong officials and business leaders.
▪ The list profiled 30 online business-to-business leaders.
▪ This is a favorite of politicians, business leaders and teacher conference speakers.
▪ The business leaders wanted the state to loosen its purse strings and give the schools' budgets a healthy boost.
▪ They include members of Congress, mayors, governors, community leaders, business leaders and reporters.
music
▪ Strip away the insincerity and the hype from the music business and see it for what it is, a jungle.
▪ Competitions are the fast food of the music business.
▪ Actually he hates the music business, and that whole London scene.
▪ So I got out of the music business for ten years.
▪ The rest of the Condemned were still nonentities, the clerks and Civil Servants of the music business.
▪ Solowka thinks Charman was unnaturally suspicious of anyone connected with the music business.
▪ It is as much a part of the music business as a 12-inch re-mix.
people
▪ Why do the Government not act on the huge injustices currently affecting business people, such as original lessee liability?
▪ The hubbub in the reception area was considerable among the gathering of journalists, show business people, and golfers.
▪ There are more business people and other professionals, homemakers and clergy in the Lone Star brigade.
▪ As always with such radical experiments, business people feared for their prosperity, equating passing traffic with increased turnover.
▪ Ubeunon priests, business people, journalists: Whatever our intentions, we were all enmeshed in the system.
▪ They must operate on a good deal less than total information; 70 percent is considered high availability for business people.
▪ In this sense, the global Journal levels the business playing field between business people in Peoria and Pretoria.
plan
▪ Applicants are attached to a voluntary business advisor in their own area who will assist them with their initial business plan.
▪ Avon was compulsively focused on long-term business plans.
▪ The company's five-year business plan includes publishing their own partworks while continuing to package continuity series and books.
▪ Each would prepare a business plan that included sales projections, budget requirements, and net profitability.
▪ Highly confidential and sensitive matters - such as business plans, projections or formulae - which must not be used.
▪ Never forget that profit is the goal of a good business plan.
▪ It expects to present a new business plan to its board by the end of the month.
▪ Understanding these potential dangers will help you prepare your business plan and stick to it.
school
▪ The business schools are unanimous that, under the e-froth, something fundamental is changing.
▪ Even the business schools are coming around to that point of view.
▪ Establish which is the best business school in the country and hire its best professor at double his or her current salary.
▪ After all, its merits were preached by our business schools for several decades.
▪ Robin Smith has been appointed head of postgraduate programmes at Newcastle Polytechnic's business school.
▪ For instance, most of our business schools talk a good game when it comes to globalization.
▪ The biggest problems business schools have are their experts.
▪ That would be akin to the business school model of giving away the razor while charging for the blades.
strategy
▪ In what ways are the changes related to changes in the company's business strategy? 10.
▪ She also will play an important role in organizational and leadership development and in developing Verio's business strategy.
▪ Clarification of issues such as these should be of great significance to both business strategy and government policy.
▪ Should your management bet the company on a high-risk business strategy?
▪ Instead they are supposed to discuss future business strategy.
▪ Newbridge officials said they are working out a business strategy with their prospective partner, whom they declined to name.
▪ Managers would do better to think of just two kinds of business strategy - competitive and corporate.
▪ What is the role of your work group in helping your company to implement its business strategy? 9.
study
▪ In business studies there were generally six or so applicants for each place.
▪ Plans exist to extend the list of short courses to business studies, geography, history, media studies and home economics.
▪ In due course I left Varndean and went to do business studies at Sussex University.
▪ College had been a first degree in law at Berkeley followed by a year at Columbia in New York doing business studies.
trip
▪ He was on a business trip to California.
▪ Scheduled an out-of-town business trip.
▪ We're over here on a business trip.
▪ One afternoon I got home from a business trip, and the first thing I did was check my voice mail.
▪ The letter would reach him on his business trip.
▪ Eugene had brought the map back after a business trip, and Wyatt had promptly memorized many of the stops.
▪ A school visit to the Ashmolean and a business trip to Morris Motors comprised his entire experience of the city.
▪ He set off on a business trip.
world
▪ Love quickly became an important figure in the business world.
▪ Since joining the business world I have seen similar techniques evoke similarly successful results.
▪ A further clue may lie in the interpretation of accountability in the business world.
▪ And he has learned he still needs to go out to lunch occasionally, just to feel part of the business world.
▪ On a parallel track, the business world is well catered for with several compatible products on the two systems.
▪ One of your greatest challenges is to make sure you are still at the heart of the business world.
▪ Good shape despite the dire forecasts still being made by much of the business world?
▪ When you get an office, you will be located in a business world.
■ VERB
build
▪ According to press reports, Dounreay is attempting to build up its foreign business to £25 million.
▪ She built her future business on the strength of that first success.
▪ Verisign has already built a tidy business selling two types of digital signatures: personal and site certificates.
▪ Yet many would-be entrepreneurs are often shocked when they discover the importance marketing has assumed-in building any new business.
▪ Through word of mouth and demand from customers, they've built up a sizable business with five drivers.
▪ Today, we have built a very successful business.
▪ Maybe such positions should be accepted as part of the price for building global businesses.
▪ Rocco Forte will concentrate and focus on building the businesses.
carry
▪ A company owned and run by Mr and Mrs Bunch carried on the business of purchase and resale of bulk butter.
▪ The international air corridors are filled with jumbo jets carrying tourists, business people, airline personnel and others.
▪ You are carrying on a business if you sell or barter any of the livestock or their produce.
▪ If you had left well alone and let me carry on my business I wouldn't be here.
▪ Banks carrying on offshore banking business in Labuan are not subject to exchange controls.
▪ Fernando Serra could make all the threats he liked but he couldn't stop her carrying on her business.
▪ Generally you have two choices: where your debtor lives or carries on his business, or where the debt was incurred.
▪ The smaller parish or community council may prefer to carry out all business through the full council instead of appointing committees.
do
▪ We did our business plans based on 50 per cent.
▪ But it reopened after a state judge ruled this month that the cooperative could do business under the tenets of Proposition 215.
▪ I was usually out working when he did his business each morning.
▪ To what degree does big business prevail in our economy?
▪ The family did well when the business was sold to U. S. Steel.
▪ Dooley made popcorn, and Barnabas did his business at the hedge with great expediency.
▪ Good Housekeeping magazine seal of approval that makes it easier for countries to borrow and do business abroad.
▪ California is a difficult place in which to do business.
mind
▪ His life had been well-ordered and reasonably happy, he thought, by minding his own business.
▪ I want you all to put that damn thing out now and go on home and mind your own business.
▪ I asked her if he'd returned home and she told me to mind my own business.
▪ Folks in Montana tend to value their privacy, to the point that minding your own business is considered a virtue.
▪ She hoped he didn't interpret them as telling him to mind his own business.
▪ Running out of time, minding its own business, looking the other way.
▪ It's a bit disconcerting to be minding your own business.
▪ When it comes to minding their own business, Montanans are of a like mind.
own
▪ If you work as a sales assistant, but dream of owning your own business, what are you doing about it?
▪ They have to think like a businessman; act like they own the business in the way they run it.
▪ It can be traced back to nineteenth-century philanthropists like the early socialist entrepreneur Robert Owen and various Quaker-#owned businesses.
▪ It is a form of business organization wherein two or more individuals agree to own and operate a business.
▪ Today, his family owns 47% of the business.
▪ Some believe Proposition 209 has had a paralyzing effect on women-and minority-#owned businesses.
▪ About ten thousand people were moved out, not counting the ones who owned small businesses along the edge.
▪ There are distributors who own their own businesses and employees who work in our offices and plants around the world.
run
▪ You simply buy the rights to run a known-name business.
▪ Verio will also provide customers with a comprehensive range of productivity-enhancing managed services needed to run their online business effectively.
▪ She runs a natural therapy business in nearby Brereton Heath.
▪ They almost ran him out of business, until the old man began training Malays to do the work.
▪ Although he ostensibly ran his own business, all of his assets were fully encumbered.
▪ Colchester Business Enterprise Agency 0206-48833: free advice for those starting or running their own business, courses and workshops.
▪ In most cases these people will have no training in the financial or legal implications of running a business for profit.
set
▪ The development of pub retailing has shown a corrective instinct for seeking to set a purpose built business in the right location.
▪ I worked with him for some time before we left to set up our business.
▪ But it is Michael Jackson's deal which may set precedents the music business will later regret.
▪ I was so focused on setting the business up, I forgot I was a key to the whole business.
▪ After finishing his apprenticeship he set up a business with this uncle, but it failed.
▪ It will also have learned a few lessons in how not to go about setting up a business.
▪ In 1862 Smith set up in business on his own account.
▪ In 1820, with a growing family, he decided to set up his own business.
start
▪ You're just starting your farming business.
▪ Like many entrepreneurs on a shoestring, they are attempting to start a business while they continue to work full-time jobs.
▪ But we can't start the serious business until the brandy arrives.
▪ Dave and Marge reached their goal by starting a business that could prosper anywhere, small town or large.
▪ Should I go out on my own and start a business, or would the insecurity be unbearable?
▪ I was working the swing shift when Albert White said he knew a guy that was going to start a newspaper business.
▪ John started up in business again.
▪ For years, Kim Gerlich has tried to coax her parents and her husband into starting a family business.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be minding your own business
▪ I was minding my own business, sleeping, when I heard something.
▪ It's a bit disconcerting to be minding your own business.
core business/activities/operations etc
▪ Additionally, entire segments of some companies will be eliminated as companies identify and refocus on their core business.
▪ But the single most reliable route to growth is probably to sell off everything but the core business.
▪ In all its acquisitions, Guinness has sought business opportunities that have enhanced and strengthened its core activities.
▪ None was big enough to become the core business of the company, Ousley says.
▪ Our strategy is to focus all our resources on the two core businesses of spirits and beers.
▪ This meant it could concentrate on two core businesses - security printing and heating and bathroom products.
▪ To maintain a high quality exploration portfolio focusing on core business areas and under-explored prospective basins.
▪ Will it be able to manage an acquisition outside its core business -- one in no need of fixing?
day-to-day work/business/life etc
▪ Also the day-to-day work of schools and the task of assessing pupils assumed a higher importance than the development of new curriculum.
▪ But since the arrival of Robins, he has taken a backseat role with day-to-day business being handled by the new chairman.
▪ Directors were given the exclusive right to manage the day-to-day business of the company.
▪ In our day-to-day lives, including day-to-day scientific lives, we have little need of such confirmed hypotheses.
▪ It also recognises that day-to-day business and executive authority is vested in line management.
▪ Justices, of course, are accustomed, as part of their day-to-day work, to assessing costs of comparatively small amounts.
▪ The problem arises because there is nothing in our day-to-day life to provide us with sufficient exercise.
▪ While with the Chargers for the past two years, McNeely oversaw the day-to-day business operations.
have a (good) head for figures/facts/business etc
like nobody's business
▪ People are buying Internet stocks like nobody's business.
lost sales/business/earnings etc
▪ A private parking garage in one building has lost business.
▪ Damaged stock means lost sales, and lost sales mean less profit.
▪ Foot-and-mouth has already cost £51million in lost sales of livestock.
▪ It's thought to have cost the Dickens and Jones department store £100,000 in lost business.
▪ It was estimated that the disruption cost retailers around £5m in lost sales.
▪ When Bogdanov refused, Mr Goddard said he intended to charge the company at least £1,650 to cover lost sales.
mean business
▪ But as the oil men realised that we meant business, seizures began to drop.
▪ But when it bites, it means business.
▪ For one local company it's meant business taking off like a rocket.
▪ One of the quintet not only means business but high-minded, selfless business.
▪ They looked as though they meant business.
▪ This does not necessarily mean businesses must avoid all such one-of-a-kinds whatever their nature.
▪ Those boys knew we meant business.
▪ Zhou had discarded his usual severe tunic for a gray Western business suit, and he meant business.
mind your own business
▪ I wish you'd stop interfering and mind your own business.
▪ Folks in Montana tend to value their privacy, to the point that minding your own business is considered a virtue.
▪ He also fired his lawyer and told civil libertarians to mind their own business.
▪ He had not minded his own business as a man of seventy in New York should do.
▪ His life had been well-ordered and reasonably happy, he thought, by minding his own business.
▪ I asked her if he'd returned home and she told me to mind my own business.
▪ I was minding my own business, sleeping, when I heard something.
▪ She hoped he didn't interpret them as telling him to mind his own business.
▪ Then I felt a fool and decided to leave it and mind my own business.
monkey business
▪ The proposal had become the victim of political monkey business and deceit.
small business/firm/farmer etc
▪ As a consequence, greater emphasis has been placed upon encouraging locally-based regeneration, and especially upon a revival of small firms.
▪ But it also is threatening the livelihoods of many small business operators in San Diego and elsewhere.
▪ Confiscatory taxes and overly complex tax regulations make it exceedingly difficult for small business to perform this basic function.
▪ On March 19 it passed a regulatory reform bill, which is intended to lighten the weight of government on small businesses.
▪ Paid holidays are 25 percent fewer in small firms and only half of this allowance is actually taken.
▪ The company also has expanded its offerings to help large and small businesses use the Internet and private computer networks.
▪ The Northern arm currently caters to the needs of more than 1,000 small businesses.
▪ The people believed, and many of them were putting money into improving their homes, modernizing their small businesses.
the business end (of sth)
▪ the business end of a gun
▪ But it was at the business end where the main difference lay.
▪ Her hair, left to its own devices to dry, looked like the business end of a witch's broom.
unfinished business
▪ Each of these women had left some unfinished business.
▪ However, during our hand-over General Churchill mentioned one piece of unfinished business.
▪ Obon is for closing off unfinished business, for restoring bonds, for healing and remembering.
▪ One bit of unfinished business was to obtain for Joe the Legion of Merit award.
▪ Seeing their own children in their teens may bring their own adolescence forcibly to mind, along with its unfinished business.
▪ Then he would be up and about, able to apply himself to unfinished business.
▪ There was definitely some unfinished business between the two of them, but he was extremely tired.
▪ Those people that you have unfinished business with.
walk-in business/clinic/centre etc
▪ The walk-in centre is the result of two years' struggle by an international group of scientists to realise an ideal.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ "Is this trip for business or pleasure?'' "Business, I'm afraid.''
▪ "What type of business are you in?'' "I run a catering company.''
▪ "Where's Michael?'' "He's at a business meeting.''
▪ Business in Europe has been badly affected by economic conditions in Asia.
▪ Business is really bad at the moment. They may have to sell some of their factories overseas.
▪ Business was good until June and then sales fell because people were on vacation.
▪ As an M.B.A. student, you study all aspects of business.
▪ Building the new highway will be good for business.
▪ Don and his wife run their own business.
▪ For kids, playing is serious business.
▪ Gerald left, saying he had some important business to attend to.
▪ He's been in the advertising business for over 20 years now, and he wants to get out.
▪ He handles the mail and all that business.
▪ His oldest daughter, 31, owns a small printing business in Fresno.
▪ His sons have worked in the family business for years.
▪ I don't want to argue about this any more -- I'm sick of the whole business.
▪ I have to go to Tokyo next month on business.
▪ I was in London last month because I had some business there.
▪ In our business the first rule is that the customer is always right.
▪ In the old days, when business was booming, he used to fly to New York twice a week.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ At the bottom of Rover's long-term failure is a hopelessly crude conception of what constitutes enterprise and business success.
▪ Few of us are fortunate enough to have a chance to try working with our partner before we go into business together.
▪ Hancock, a native of Great Britain, is a veteran of the computer business.
▪ His heirs developed the business to adapt to changing modes of transport.
▪ I made it my business to be there at dinner the following day.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Business

Business \Busi"ness\ (b[i^]z"n[e^]s), n.; pl. Businesses (b[i^]z"n[e^]s*[e^]z). [From Busy.]

  1. That which busies one, or that which engages the time, attention, or labor of any one, as his principal concern or interest, whether for a longer or shorter time; constant employment; regular occupation; as, the business of life; business before pleasure.

    Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?
    --Luke ii. 49.

  2. Any particular occupation or employment engaged in for livelihood or gain, as agriculture, trade, art, or a profession. ``The business of instruction.''
    --Prescott.

  3. Financial dealings; buying and selling; traffic in general; mercantile transactions.

    It seldom happens that men of a studious turn acquire any degree of reputation for their knowledge of business.
    --Bp. Popteus.

  4. That which one has to do or should do; special service, duty, or mission.

    The daughter of the King of France, On serious business, craving quick despatch, Importunes personal conference.
    --Shak.

    What business has the tortoise among the clouds?
    --L'Estrange.

  5. Affair; concern; matter; -- used in an indefinite sense, and modified by the connected words.

    It was a gentle business, and becoming The action of good women.
    --Shak.

    Bestow Your needful counsel to our business.
    --Shak.

  6. (Drama) The position, distribution, and order of persons and properties on the stage of a theater, as determined by the stage manager in rehearsal.

  7. Care; anxiety; diligence. [Obs.]
    --Chaucer.

    To do one's business, to ruin one. [Colloq.]
    --Wycherley.

    To make (a thing) one's business, to occupy one's self with a thing as a special charge or duty. [Colloq.]

    To mean business, to be earnest. [Colloq.]

    Syn: Affairs; concern; transaction; matter; engagement; employment; calling; occupation; trade; profession; vocation; office; duty.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
business

Old English bisignes (Northumbrian) "care, anxiety, occupation," from bisig "careful, anxious, busy, occupied, diligent" (see busy (adj.)) + -ness. Middle English sense of "state of being much occupied or engaged" (mid-14c.) is obsolete, replaced by busyness.\n

\nSense of "a person's work, occupation" is first recorded late 14c. (in late Old English bisig (adj.) appears as a noun with the sense "occupation, state of employment"). Meaning "what one is about at the moment" is from 1590s. Sense of "trade, commercial engagements" is first attested 1727. In 17c. it also could mean "sexual intercourse." Modern two-syllable pronunciation is 17c.\n

\nBusiness card first attested 1840; business letter from 1766. Business end "the practical or effective part" (of something) is American English, by 1874. Phrase business as usual attested from 1865. To mean business "be intent on serious action" is from 1856. To mind (one's) own business is from 1620s. Johnson's dictionary also has busiless "At leisure; without business; unemployed."

Wiktionary
business

a. Of, to, pertaining to or utilized for purposes of conducting trade, commerce, governance, advocacy or other professional purposes. n. (context countable English) A specific commercial enterprise or establishment.

Related phrases:
WordNet
business

  1. n. a commercial or industrial enterprise and the people who constitute it; "he bought his brother's business"; "a small mom-and-pop business"; "a racially integrated business concern" [syn: concern, business concern, business organization, business organisation]

  2. the activity of providing goods and services involving financial and commercial and industrial aspects; "computers are now widely used in business" [syn: commercial enterprise, business enterprise]

  3. business concerns collectively; "Government and business could not agree" [syn: business sector]

  4. the volume of business activity; "business is good today"; "show me where the business was today"

  5. a rightful concern or responsibility; "it's none of your business"; "mind your own business"

  6. the principal activity in your life that you do to earn money; "he's not in my line of business" [syn: occupation, job, line of work, line]

  7. an immediate objective; "gossip was the main business of the evening"

  8. incidental activity performed by an actor for dramatic effect; "his business with the cane was hilarious" [syn: stage business, byplay]

  9. customers collectively; "they have an upper class clientele" [syn: clientele, patronage]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Business (song)

"Business" is a song by American rapper Eminem from his fourth studio album The Eminem Show (2002). "Business" was released as the final single from The Eminem Show in July 2003. The single was not released in the United States.

Business (EP)

Business is the debut EP from New Jersey, rock band Jet Lag Gemini,. Recorded in Madison, NJ at Northshore Studios when two of the band members were still 15 years old, the EP was released June 6, 2006 on Doghouse Records.

Business (newspaper)

Business is a Ukrainian Russian-language weekly business newspaper published every Monday.

Business (TV channel)

Business (later – Ukrainian Business Channel, UBC) – first Ukrainian specialized TV channel for business-community. Established in 2007.

Business (1960 film)

Business is a 1960 French film directed by Maurice Boutel and starring Colette Renard, Pierre Doris and Marcel Charvey.

Business

A business, also known as an enterprise, or a firm, is an entity involved in the provision of goods and/or services to consumers. Businesses are prevalent in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and provide goods and services to customers in exchange for other goods, services, or money. Businesses may also be social non-profit enterprises or state-owned public enterprises targeted for specific social and economic objectives. A business owned by multiple individuals may be formed as an incorporated company or jointly organised as a partnership. Countries have different laws that may ascribe different rights to the various business entities.

Business can refer to a particular organization or to an entire market sector, e.g. "the music business". Compound forms such as agribusiness represent subsets of the word's broader meaning, which encompasses all activity by suppliers of goods and services. The goal is for sales to be more than expenditures resulting in a profit.

Business (disambiguation)

A business is an organization involved in the trade of goods, services, or both, with consumers.

Business may also refer to:

  • the business sector - the combined activity of all company-based trading and industrial activity in an economy
  • trade, the transfer of the ownership of goods or services from one person or entity to another in exchange for other goods or services or for money
  • Business (EP), an EP by Jet Lag Gemini
  • Business (newspaper), a weekly business newspaper in Ukraine
  • "Business" (song), a single by Eminem
  • business class on airlines
  • business route, a type of highway in North America
  • A group of ferrets
Related phrases:

Usage examples of "business".

The abrazo is absent from their greeting, just a handshake and a quick, murmured discussion of business.

Jen had expected something in the Central Business District, or CBD to the Australians who seemed to her to have a mania for shortening or abreviating everything.

Here the Court declared that the right of a citizen, resident in one State, to contract in another, to transact any lawful business, or to make a loan of money, in any State other than that in which the citizen resides was a privilege of national citizenship which was abridged by a State income tax law excluding from taxable income interest received on money loaned within the State.

What has such an adhesive to act upon if there is absolutely no given magnitude of real earth to which it may bind particle after particle in its business of producing the continuous mass?

Sunday was a day for pleasure and not business he hoped I would honour them by passing the day at their pretty house on the Amstel, and they were delighted at my accepting their invitation.

She ached to be able to give way to her emotions, to turn to Robert and to scream at him that he was the reason she had devoted herself to her business, that it was because of him that she was too afraid to let herself love again.

The reason why I did not acquaint you last night that I professed this art, was, that I then concluded you was under the hands of another gentleman, and I never love to interfere with my brethren in their business.

The life of Pliny had been employed in the acquisition of learning, and in the business of the world.

For a man who was never in the country, and who did not evidently do much in the way of business, his knowledge and acumen were wonderful.

This was speaking like a man of business, and the arguments adduced were unanswerable.

An order enjoining certain steam railroads from discriminating against an electric railroad by denying it reciprocal switching privileges did not violate the Fifth Amendment even though its practical effect was to admit the electric road to a part of the business being adequately handled by the steam roads.

When that has been done, the burden rests on the regulated company to show that this item has neither been adequately covered in the rate base nor recouped from prior earnings of the business.

The present state of affairs was this: the assembly having been convened to consider the resolutions passed in parliament, had been adjourned on their refusal to entertain the supplies, or to proceed to business.

In the opposing picket line, men and women of ordinary appearance were in the majority, though there was a noticeable admixture of men in biknis, and women in codpieced, translucent business suits.

Lord Ado would leave her alone for an extended time as he still had other business to conduct and probably wanted her to wait in fear for his entrance.