Meaning

(countable, uncountable) An excited activity; a stir..

Definitions by Sense

1. (countable, uncountable) An excited activity; a stir.
2. (computing, countable) A cover to protect and hide the back panel of a computer or other office machine.
3. (historical, countable) A frame worn underneath a woman's skirt, typically only protruding from the rear as opposed to the earlier more circular hoops.
4. (UK, slang, obsolete, uncountable) Money; cash.
5. To move busily and energetically with fussiness (often followed by about).
6. To teem or abound (usually followed by with); to exhibit an energetic and active abundance (of a thing).
7. (transitive) To push around, to importune.

Example Sentences

the whirl and bustle of a large metropolis

we are, perhaps, all the while flattering our natural indolence, which, hating the bustle of the world, and drudgery of business seeks a pretence of reason to give itself a full and uncontrolled indulgence.

In the midſt of all this buſtle, I was ſtruck with the appearance of a large bevy of beauties and women of the firſt fashion, who with all the perfect confidence of good breeding, inſhrined themſelves in the ſeveral temples dedicated to the Cyprian Venus[.]

All the portraits that hang on the walls of the living room are, I realize, of my mother's family: miniatures of her great-aunts in Victorian bustles and elaborate feathered hats; a gilt-framed oil of her great-great-great-uncle as a boy in pastoral England, wearing a gold riding coat over white jodhpurs and sitting astride a white steed, a King Charles spaniel yapping at them from the foreground of the canvas.

Why the old clerical's turned coper—a new way of raising the wind——letting his friends down easy—gave you a good dinner, I suppose, Sir John, and took this method of drawing the bustle for it: an old trick of the reverend's.

The commuters bustled about inside the train station.

I was once so mad to bussell abroad, and seek about for preferment […].

The train station was bustling with commuters.

Word Forms

• bustles
• bustling
• bustled

Synonyms for bustle

Related Words

When Should You Use Bustle?

Use bustle when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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