When you shall hear and see so many discontented persons in all places where you come, so many several grievances, unnecessary complaints, fears, suspicions, the best means to redress it is to set them awork, so to busy their minds; for the truth is, they are idle.

The food was appetizing and well cooked, and we lingered over it for some time, while Watkins busied the men forward.

V. be active &c adj.; busy oneself in; stir, stir about, stir one's stumps; bestir oneself, rouse oneself; speed, hasten, peg away, lay about one, bustle, fuss; raise up, kick up a dust; push; make a push, make a fuss, make a stir; go ahead, push forward; fight one's way, elbow one's way; make progress &c 282; toll &c (labor) 686; plod, persist &c (persevere) 604.1; keep up the ball, keep the pot boiling.

"He then led me about all the by-places in the house, and shew'd me fifty little backdoors, dark closets, and narrow passages in alterations and contrivances of which kind he had busied his head most part of the vacation; for he was scarce ever without some notable joyner or a bricklayer extraordinary, in pay, for twenty years.

She took up some work and tried to busy her hands.

When Schulze reappeared and busied himself writing, he looked from the stone face to the face of flesh with fascinated repulsionthe man and the "familiar" were so ghastly alike.

slow moving o'er the prostrate dead: Listless, she crawls along in doleful black, Whilst bursts of sorrow gush from either eye, Fast falling down her now untasted cheek: Prone on the lowly grave of the dear man She drops; whilst busy, meddling memory, In barbarous succession musters up The past endearments of their softer hours, Tenacious of its theme.

To show consciousness of their sex is to risk offence, and to busy one's eyes with their magnificent hair, instead of the magnificent brains beneath it, is to insult them.

I wrote therefore, and busied myself in this playing labour, oliosaque diligentia ut vitarem torporum feriandi with Vectius in Macrobius, atque otium in utile verterem negatium.

"Your letters are so full of questions and wonderments about ways in your mother's day, that they set me rambling in the backwoods of the sixties, when women were sending their lovers to the Civil War, and then bravely sitting down and rolling their own hearts up with the bandages with which they busied their fingers.

The non-living factors are those with the intimate scrutiny of which physics and chemistry have busied themselves: food, water, air, light, heat, electricity, magnetism.

this world's defeat; The stop to busie fools; care's check and curb; The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat Which none disturb!] LETTER 342 CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

"They, as a general rule, straggled about the country," says Polybius, the most correct and clear-sighted of the ancient historians, "sleeping on grass or straw, living on nothing but meat, busying themselves about nothing but war and a little husbandry, and counting as riches nothing but flocks and gold, the only goods that can be carried away at pleasure and on every occasion.

" We do not praise what we have never even heard of; we were very likely, in such a state of confusion, and such a critical period of the republic, to busy our minds about two worthless Greeklings!

There were other loves that busied his heart.

His axe awoke the echoes of the forest, and he busied himself building houses, planting fields, and providing for their comforts.

I busy jus' like always, an' I throw behin' that couch I sit on.

To show consciousness of their sex is to risk offence, and to busy one's eyes with their magnificent hair, instead of the magnificent brains beneath it, is to insult them.

As Ortogrul of Basra was one day wandering along the streets of Bagdat, musing on the varieties of merchandise which the shops offered to his view, and observing the different occupations which busied the multitudes on every side, he was awakened from the tranquillity of meditation by a crowd that obstructed his passage.

These Principles of Election are the Pastimes and Extravagancies of Human Reason, which is of so busie a Nature, that it will be exerting it self in the meanest Trifles and working even when it wants Materials.

At the same time I must own I would rather he was a Man of a rough Temper, that would treat me harshly sometimes, than of such an effeminate busy Nature in a Province that does not belong to him.

" This they have to busy themselves about, household offices, &c., neat gardens, full of exotic, versicolour, diversely varied, sweet-smelling flowers, and plants in all kinds, which they are most ambitious to get, curious to preserve and keep, proud to possess, and much many times brag of.

I took a stone for a pillow with my hat on it for a cushion, and lying down close under the shelving rock I went to sleep, for I was very tired, I woke soon from being cold, for the butte was pretty high, and so I busied myself the remainder of the night in adding little sticks to the fire, which gave me some warmth, and thus in solitude I spent the night.

and, while all others were crowding down to the lake side, he busied him self in arranging the volunteers for the pursuit, and seeing that his own musket was in a proper state for active service.

The people believed that on that evening and night the witches were abroad and busy casting spells on cattle and stealing cows' milk.