How do you use the word "business" in a sentence?

Here are real-life examples of using "business": It is high time you started a new business. You should attend to your own business.

Business Meaning

/ˈbɪz.nɪs/

Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Definition

nounA specific commercial enterprise or establishment.

nounA person's occupation, work, or trade.

Sentence Examples

It is high time you started a new business.

You should attend to your own business.

It's been a pleasure to do business with you.

Synonyms & Antonyms

Synonyms:

job line concern

Antonyms:

None

CEFR Practice Quiz

She started a small baking ____ from her home kitchen last year.

CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)

She decided to start her own small ____ selling handmade jewelry.

Word Origin & History

Etymology tree Proto-West Germanic *bisīg Old English bisiġ Proto-Germanic *-in- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ti Proto-Germanic *-ōną Proto-Germanic *-inōną Proto-Indo-European *-dyé- Proto-Germanic *-atjaną Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Germanic *-þuz Proto-Germanic *-assuz Proto-Germanic *-inassuz Proto-West Germanic *-nassī Old English -nes Old English bisiġnes Middle English bisynes English business From Middle English busines, busynes, businesse, bisynes, from Old English bisiġnes (“business, busyness”), equivalent to busy + -ness. Doublet of busyness. Sense 17 (something very good, top quality), possibly derives from "the bee's knees"

Literary Quotations & Historical Citations

"The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them, which is then licensed to related businesses in high-tax countries, is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies." — 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:

"In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters." — 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:

"Policing the relationship between government and business in a free society is difficult. Businesspeople have every right to lobby governments, and civil servants to take jobs in the private sector." — 2013 August 10, Schumpeter, “Cronies and capitols”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:

"The wolde ſome mayſter perhappes clowt ye / But as for me ye nede nat doute ye / For I had leuer be without ye / Then haue ſuche beſyneſſe aboute ye." — [1545?], John Heywood, The Playe Called The Foure PP […], London: […] Wyllyam Myddylton, →OCLC; reprinted as John S. Farmer, editor, The Play Called The Four PP […] (The Tudor Facsimile Texts), London; Edinburgh: […] T. C. & E. C. Jack, […], 1908, →OCLC, signature [E.ii.], verso:

"To know the naturall cause of Sense, is not very necessary to the business now in hand; and I have els-where written of the same at large." — 1651, Thomas Hobbes, “Chapter I: Of Sense”, in Leviathanᵂⁱᵏⁱˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ:

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