busy

busy, industrious, diligent, assiduous, sedulous mean actively engaged or occupied in work or in accomplishing a purpose or intention.

Busy may imply nothing more than that the person or thing referred to is not idle, that is, that he is at work or that it is in use

{

the doctor is busy just now

}

{

the telephone is busy

}

In attributive use and some predicative use busy usually implies habitual or temporary engrossment in activity or the appearance of such engrossment

{

the busy bee

}

{

a busy life

}

{

nowhere so busy a man as he there was, and yet he seemed busier than he was— Chaucer

}

{

busy offices full of bustling clerks— Nevins & Commager

}

Industrious applies to one who is characteristically attentive to his business, work, or avocation; it implies habitual or continual earnest application

{

a willing, industrious boy ever striving to please

}

{

at once the most industrious and the least industrial of the great nations— Browne

}

Diligent may stress care, constancy, attentiveness, and thoroughness, but it often implies application of these to some specific object or pursuit; thus, one may be diligent in seeking some favorite end without being in general industrious

{

the Yankee's boots were missing, and after a diligent search were not to be found— Melville

}

{

a diligent student of the scriptures

}

Assiduous implies studied and unremitting, and sedulous, painstaking and persevering application to a business or enterprise

{

acquire the power to speak French fluently by assiduous practice

}

{

an assiduous nurse

}

{

a sedulous but not brilliant student

}

{

attempted to gain his end by sedulous flattery

}

{

even the most assiduous critic can scarcely hope to keep abreast of the growing flood of translated books— Times Lit. Sup.

}

{

I read with sedulous accuracy ... the metrical romances— Coleridge

}

{

she would never fail in sedulous attention to his wants— M. E. Freeman

}

Analogous words: engrossed, absorbed, *intent: working, toiling, laboring, travailing (see corresponding nouns at WORK)

Antonyms: idle: unoccupied

Contrasted words: *inactive, inert, passive: indolent, slothful, *lazy: slack, relaxed (see LOOSE)