B — Bushet to Butcher (Part 5 of 7)

3. Crowded with business or activities; — said of places and times; as, a busy street.

To-morrow is a busy day.
Shak.

4. Officious; meddling; foolish active.

On meddling monkey, or on busy ape.
Shak.

5. Careful; anxious. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Syn. — Diligent; industrious; assiduous; active; occupied; engaged.

Busy
(Bus"y) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Busied (biz"zid); p. pr. & vb. n. Busying.] [AS. bysgian.] To make or keep busy; to employ; to engage or keep engaged; to occupy; as, to busy one's self with books.

Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels.
Shak.

Busybody
(Bus"y*bod`y) n.; pl. Busybodies One who officiously concerns himself with the affairs of others; a meddling person.

And not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.
1 Tim. v. 13.

But
(But) prep., adv. & conj. [OE. bute, buten, AS. butan, without, on the outside, except, besides; pref. be- + utan outward, without, fr. ut out. Primarily, butan, as well as ut, is an adverb. &radic198. See By, Out; cf. About.]

1. Except with; unless with; without. [Obs.]

So insolent that he could not go but either spurning equals or trampling on his inferiors.
Fuller.

Touch not the cat but a glove.
Motto of the Mackintoshes.

2. Except; besides; save.

Who can it be, ye gods! but perjured Lycon?
E. Smith.

In this sense, but is often used with other particles; as, but for, without, had it not been for. "Uncreated but for love divine." Young.

3. Excepting or excluding the fact that; save that; were it not that; unless; — elliptical, for but that.

And but my noble Moor is true of mind . . . it were enough to put him to ill thinking.
Shak.

4. Otherwise than that; that not; — commonly, after a negative, with that.

It cannot be but nature hath some director, of infinite power, to guide her in all her ways.
Hooker.

There is no question but the king of Spain will reform most of the abuses.
Addison.

5. Only; solely; merely.

Observe but how their own principles combat one another.
Milton.

If they kill us, we shall but die.
2 Kings vii. 4.

A formidable man but to his friends.
Dryden.