–noun

1.	an occupation, profession, or trade: His business is poultry farming.

2.	the purchase and sale of goods in an attempt to make a profit.

3.	a person, partnership, or corporation engaged in commerce, manufacturing, or a service; profit-seeking enterprise or concern.

4.	volume of trade; patronage: Most of the store's business comes from local families.

5.	a building or site where commercial work is carried on, as a factory 71 , store, or office; place of work: His business is on the corner of Broadway and Elm St ed2 reet.

6.	that with which a person is principally and seriously concerned: Words are a writer's business.

7.	something with which a person is rightfully concerned: What they are doing is none of my business.

8.	affair; project: We were exasperated by the whole business.

9.	an assignment or task; chore: It's your business to wash the dishes now.

10.	Also called piece of business, stage business. Theater. a movement or gesture, esp. a minor one, used by an actor to give expressiveness, drama, detail, etc., to a scene or to help portray a character.

11.	excrement: used as a euphemism.

–adjective

12.	of, noting, or pertaining to business, its organization, or its procedures.

13.	containing, suitable for, or welcoming business or commerce: New York is a good business town.

—Idioms

14.	business is business, profit has precedence over personal considerations: He is reluctant to fire his friend, but business is business.

15.	do one's business, (usually of an animal or child) to defecate or urinate: housebreaking a puppy to do his business outdoors.

16.	get down to business, to apply oneself to serious matters; concentrate on work: They finally got down to business and signed the contract.

17.

give someone the business, Informal. a. to make difficulties for someone; treat harshly: Instead of a straight answer they give him the business with a needless run-around. b. to scold severely; give a tongue-lashing to: The passengers will give the bus driver the business if he keeps driving so recklessly.

18.	have no business, to have no right: You have no business coming into this house.

19 fee .

mean business, to propose to take action or be serious in intent; be in earnest: By the fire in his eye we knew that he meant business.

20.	mind one's own business, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others: When he inquired about the noise coming from the neighbor's apartment, he was told to mind his own business.

–n 8c8 oun

1.	an institution where instruction is given, esp. to persons under college age: The children are at school.

2.	an institution for instruction in a particular skill or field.

3.	a college or university.

4.	a regular course of meetings of a teacher or teachers and students for instruction; program of instruction: summer school.

5.	a session of such a course: no school today; to be kept after school.

6.	the activity or process of learning under instruction, esp. at a school for the young: As a child, I never liked school.

7.	one's formal education: They plan to be married when he finishes school.

8.	a building housing a school.

9.	the body of students, or students and teachers, belonging to an educational institution: The entire school rose when the principal entered the auditorium.

10.	a building, room, etc., in a university, set apart for the use of one of the faculties or for some particular purpose: the school of agriculture.

11.	a particular faculty or department of a university having the right to recommend candidates for degrees, and usually beginning its program of instruction after the student has completed general education: d46 medical school.

12.	any place, situation, etc., tending to teach anything.

13.	the body of pupils or followers of a master, system, method, etc.: the Platonic school of philosophy.

14.	Art. a. a group of artists, as painters, writers, or musicians, whose works reflect a common conceptual, regional, or personal influence: the modern school; the Florentine school. b. the art and artists of a geographical location considered independently of stylistic similarity: the French school.

15.	any group of persons having common attitudes or beliefs.

16.	Military, Navy. parts of close-order drill applying to the individual (school of the soldier), the squad (school of the squad), or the like.

17.	Australian and New Zealand Informal. a group of people gathered together, esp. for gambling or drinking.

18.	schools, Archaic. the faculties of a university.

19.	Obsolete. the schoolmen in a medieval university.

–adjective

20.	of or connected with a school or schools.

21.	Obsolete. of the schoolmen.

–verb (used with object)

22.	to educate in or as if in a school; teach; train.

23.	Archaic. to reprimand.