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BUSTLING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Full of energetic and noisy activity
Example:
a bustling city
Classified under:
Similar:
active (full of activity or engaged in continuous activity)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb bustle
Context examples:
The crowd melted away, after the bustling fashion common to arrival platforms; and I was beginning to feel uneasy, lest I might miss my guest, when a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl stepped up to me, and, after a quick glance, said: Dr. Seward, is it not?
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
We had not sat here many minutes, when Mrs. Markleham, who usually contrived to be in a fuss about something, came bustling in, with her newspaper in her hand, and said, out of breath, My goodness gracious, Annie, why didn't you tell me there was someone in the Study!
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
And there, as they slowly paced the gradual ascent, heedless of every group around them, seeing neither sauntering politicians, bustling housekeepers, flirting girls, nor nursery-maids and children, they could indulge in those retrospections and acknowledgements, and especially in those explanations of what had directly preceded the present moment, which were so poignant and so ceaseless in interest.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
He pointed to a smallish, dark, well-dressed man who was bustling along the other side of the road.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I saw George come bustling in, with a good-humoured smile upon his comely face.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“I will take your orders, gentles; I will assuredly take your orders,” the landlady answered, bustling in with her hands full of leathern drinking-cups.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I allowed Adele to sit up much later than usual; for she declared she could not possibly go to sleep while the doors kept opening and shutting below, and people bustling about.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
He gave me to understand that his house was some little distance off, in Kensington, and he seemed to be in a great hurry, bustling me rapidly into the cab when we had descended to the street.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about—setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in former days.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
In the servants' hall two coachmen and three gentlemen's gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about everywhere.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
