busy

Crowded with business or activities; having a great deal going on.

Be careful crossing that busy street.

To-morrow is a busy day.

Engaged with or preoccupied by an activity or person.

The director cannot see you now: he's busy.

Her telephone has been busy all day.

Having much work to do; having much to get done.

Near-synonym: swamped

Finding the time to work out and cook healthy meals is easily pushed to the wayside in our ordinary, busy lives.

Having a lot going on; complicated or intricate.

Flowers, stripes, and checks in the same fabric make for a busy pattern.

Officious; meddling.

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.

A police officer.

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.

To make somebody busy or active; to occupy.

On my vacation I'll busy myself with gardening.

They busied themselves with the tea.