business

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The activity of buying and selling commodities, products, or services.
• noun The amount or volume of this activity.
• noun The variety of this activity in which a person is engaged.
• noun A specific occupation or pursuit.
• noun A commercial enterprise or establishment.
• noun Commercial dealings; patronage.
• noun One's rightful or proper concern or interest.
• noun Something involving one personally.
• noun Serious work or endeavor.
• noun An affair or matter.
• noun An incidental action performed by an actor on the stage to fill a pause between lines or to provide interesting detail.
• noun Informal Strong verbal criticism; scolding.
• noun Informal Urination or defecation.
• noun Obsolete The condition of being busy.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The state of being busy or actively employed; diligence; pains.
• noun Care; anxiety; solicitude; worry.
• noun A matter or affair that engages a person's attention or requires his care; an affair receiving or requiring attention; specifically, that which busies or occupies one's time, attention, and labor as his chief concern; that which one does for a livelihood; occupation; employment: as, his business was that of a merchant; to carry on the business of agriculture.
• noun Specifically Mercantile pursuits collectively; employments requiring knowledge of accounts and financial methods; the occupation of conducting trade or monetary transactions of any kind.
• noun That which is undertaken as a duty or of chief importance, or is set up as a principal purpose or aim.
• noun Concern; right of action or interposition: as, what business has a man with the disputes of others?
• noun Affair; point; matter.
• noun Theat., such preconcerted movements and actions on the stage as going up, crossing over, taking a chair, poking a fire, toying with anything, etc., designed to fill up the action of the play or character, and heighten its effect.
• noun To ease one's self at stool.
• Relating to, connected with, or engaged in business, traffic, trade, etc.: as, business habits; business hours; business men.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun That which busies one, or that which engages the time, attention, or labor of any one, as his principal concern or interest, whether for a longer or shorter time; constant employment; regular occupation.
• noun Any particular occupation or employment engaged in for livelihood or gain, as agriculture, trade, art, or a profession.
• noun Financial dealings; buying and selling; traffic in general; mercantile transactions.
• noun That which one has to do or should do; special service, duty, or mission.
• noun Affair; concern; matter; -- used in an indefinite sense, and modified by the connected words.
• noun (Drama) The position, distribution, and order of persons and properties on the stage of a theater, as determined by the stage manager in rehearsal.
• noun obsolete Care; anxiety; diligence.
• noun [Colloq.] to ruin one.
• noun [Colloq.] to occupy one's self with a thing as a special charge or duty.
• noun [Colloq.] to be earnest.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun countable A specific commercial enterprise or establishment.
• noun countable A person's occupation, work, or trade.
• noun uncountable Commercial, industrial, or professional activity.
• noun uncountable The volume or amount of commercial trade.
• noun uncountable One's dealings; patronage.
• noun uncountable Private commercial interests taken collectively.
• noun uncountable The management of commercial enterprises, or the study of such management.
• noun countable A particular situation or activity.
• noun countable An objective or a matter needing to be dealt with.
• noun uncountable Something involving one personally.
• noun uncountable, parliamentary procedure Matters that come before a body for deliberation or action.
• noun travel, uncountable Business class, the class of seating provided by airlines between first class and coach.
• noun acting Action carried out with a prop or piece of clothing, usually away from the focus of the scene.
• noun countable, rare The collective noun for a group of ferrets.