Definition of "busy"

To-morrow is a busy day.

c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene iii]

Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. […] They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute.

1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the page number)”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […]

And the first thing I did was to lay by a certain quantity of provisions, being the stores for our voyage; and intended in a week or a fortnight’s time to open the dock, and launch out our boat. I was busy one morning upon something of this kind, when I called to Friday, and bid him to go to the sea-shore and see if he could find a turtle or a tortoise, a thing which we generally got once a week, for the sake of the eggs as well as the flesh.But to return to Friday; he was so busy about his father that I could not find in my heart to take him off for some time; but after I thought he could leave him a little, I called him to me, and he came jumping and laughing, and pleased to the highest extreme: then I asked him if he had given his father any bread.

1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], 3rd edition, London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], published 1719

After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know anything about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that it was time to be at home.

1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […]

His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.

1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the page number)”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […]

In fact she was so busy doing all the things that anyone might, who finds themselves alone in an empty house, that she did not notice at first when it began to turn dusk and the rooms to grow dim.

1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, page 18

I will be hanged if some eternal villain, / Some busy and insinuating rogue, / Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office, / Have not devised this slander; I'll be hanged else.

c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene ii], line 130

They busied themselves with the tea.

2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 114

I remember playing on a building site once and coming across a five-pound note. I could hardly believe it when I spotted it poking out of the rubble. Excitedly, I ran straight home and gave it to my mum. I was hero of the hour until I got into trouble with the busies – the police – soon afterwards for pinching a bottle of milk from a float.

2016, Chris Graham, Five Minutes of Amazing: My Journey Through Dementia, London: Sphere, page 30