Dictionaries › English

bustle

Pronunciation: /ˈbʌsəl/

The English word “bustle” has 7 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. An excited activity; a stir.
  2. A cover to protect and hide the back panel of a computer or other office machine.
  3. A frame worn underneath a woman's skirt, typically only protruding from the rear as opposed to the earlier more circular hoops.
  4. Money; cash.

verb

  1. To move busily and energetically with fussiness (often followed by about).
  2. To teem or abound (usually followed by with); to exhibit an energetic and active abundance (of a thing).
  3. To push around, to importune.

Etymology

From Middle English bustlen, bustelen, bostlen, perhaps an alteration of *busklen (> Modern English buskle), a frequentative of Middle English busken (“to prepare; make ready”), from Old Norse búask (“to prepare oneself”); or alternatively from a frequentative form of Middle English busten, bisten (“to buffet; pummel; dash; beat”) + -le. Compare also Icelandic bustla (“to splash; bustle”). The…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “bustle” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.