States and conditions
Synonyms for busy
Synonyms for busy: engaged, interfering and fussy. Every one of them is a hand audited pair from the Synonym Stack word bank, shown below in the sense it fits, in a real sentence, and beside the words that only look close.
The 3 synonyms for busy
Interchangeable with busy, one per sense
Audited under busy's own entry, so the meaning quoted is the one busy carries in that sense.
- engagedadjective, in the sense "unavailable for use by anyone else or indicating unavailability"
- interferingadjective, in the sense "intrusive in a meddling or offensive manner"
Recorded from the other side of the pair
These entries were written under the other word and name busy as the true synonym, so the sense quoted is theirs.
- fussyfussy is an adjective in the sense "overcrowded or cluttered with detail"
Two directions, one standard: two audited under busy and one under the partner word. Nothing here was expanded out of a thesaurus.
unavailable for use by anyone else or indicating unavailability
Her line is busy.
busy in 2 more sentences, same sense
- The technician said the extension was busy and asked her to try again later.
- He kept getting a busy signal when he called the repair shop before closing.
How it behaves: In this sense busy is a predicate adjective following a linking verb like be or sound, most often describing a phone line, extension, or signal in everyday spoken registers.
The true synonym
engaged
Same sentence, swapped: Her line is engaged.
Close but different
Wrong tiles, chosen to be tempting rather than absurd. The reason line above takes the nearest one apart; the rest fail the same sentence for their own reasons.
- interfering
- fussy
- forward
Opposites, in this sense
free and available reverse busy as it is used in the sentence above. A different sense of busy takes different opposites, which is why these sit inside the sense and not at the top of the page.
- free
- available
intrusive in a meddling or offensive manner
Busy about other people's business.
The true synonym
interfering
Same sentence, swapped: Interfering about other people's business.
Close but different
Wrong tiles, chosen to be tempting rather than absurd. The reason line above takes the nearest one apart; the rest fail the same sentence for their own reasons.
- engaged
- fussy
- forward
Where busy turns up in the game
busy is the word under test in two puzzles, spread across two difficulty tiers. It also sits on the board as one of the three wrong tiles in three other puzzles, where the answer is a different word entirely.
The puzzles where busy is the trap
- workingadjective, Tier 1, Foothills. The answer there is running, in the sense "performing or capable of performing", and busy is one of the three tiles that lose.
- clannishadjective, Tier 2, Treeline. The answer there is cliquish, in the sense "tending to associate only within one's own close group, unwelcoming to outsiders", with busy sitting one tile away.
- jovialadjective, Tier 5, Summit. The answer there is jocund, in the sense "cheerful and friendly", and busy is on the board beside it.
Play busy
The bank on this page is the bank the game plays from, so busy reaches you as a board rather than a definition: the sentence first, four tiles, and the meaning after you choose.
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The ring widens as it goes, from states and conditions at Foothills outward to the whole bank.
The wrong tile gets explained too
Synonym Stack plays from this exact bank. busy carries 2 written reason lines, and the game shows them the moment a round ends, whichever tile you tapped.