busy
bus·y/ˈbɪz.i/adjective, noun, verb
busy is spelled B-U-S-Y, 2 syllables: bus·y. The wrong spelling people search most is bizy: about 50 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 60 of all searches for the word. Busy is an adjective meaning “Crowded with business or activities; having a great deal going on”.
How many letters and syllables are in busy?
| Letters | 4: B-U-S-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: bus·y |
| In writing | 56 times per million words; the 1,822nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, bizy, about 50 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell busy?
Busy is spelled B-U-S-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 60 of the searches for busy in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is busy?
Busy appears 56 times per million words in written English, the 1,822nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce busy?
- /ˈbɪz.i/
Busy has 2 syllables, split bus·y in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-busy.ogg, En-uk-busy.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-busy.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with busy
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Also written: bussy.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of busy
- busier comparative
- busiest superlative
- busies plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- busying participle, present
- busied participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does busy mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Crowded with business or activities; having a great deal going on.
Be careful crossing that busy street.
- 2
Engaged with or preoccupied by an activity or person.
The director cannot see you now: he's busy.
- 3
Having much work to do; having much to get done.
Near-synonym: swamped
- 4
Having a lot going on; complicated or intricate.
Flowers, stripes, and checks in the same fabric make for a busy pattern.
- 5
Officious; meddling.
noun
- 1
UKderogatoryslangA police officer.
verb
- 1
To make somebody busy or active; to occupy.
On my vacation I'll busy myself with gardening.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Busy in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | occupé , se livrer |
| German | beschäftigt , beschäftigen , besetzt |
| Portuguese | movimentado , ocupar , ocupado |
| Spanish | ocupado, concurrido, bisi , hasta las manos |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does busy come from?
From Middle English bisy, busie, from Old English bisiġ (“busy, occupied, diligent”), from Proto-West Germanic *bisīg (“diligent; zealous; busy”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian biesich (“active, diligent, hard-working, industrious”), Dutch bezig (“busy”), Low German besig (“busy”). The spelling with ⟨u⟩ represents the pronunciation of the West Midland and Southern dialects while the Modern English pronunciation with /ɪ/ is from the dialects of the East Midlands.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).