Pylimitics

Even though people have been “doing business” for who knows how long, the word “business” hasn’t always meant what it does now. It’s derived from the Old English word “bisignis,” which was formed from “bisig” (busy) and “ness.” “Bisig” is a bit of a mystery; it might be related to the Dutch word “bezig,” but nobody knows anything about the origins of either of those words. Or if somebody does know, evidently they consider it none of our business. 

In Old English, “bisignis” meant “anxiety.” It slowly came to also mean a state of activity, and by the 1300s it meant “engaged in official tasks.” Another century later, “business” meant anything you were doing for work — this sense survives today in the phrase “mind your business.” That phrase first appeared in print as early as 1625 when Francis Bacon used it in one of his essays, in which he was probably really giving somebody the business.

There were commercial organizations and enterprises in those days, but they were called “companies” or, later, “firms.” They weren’t called “businesses” for a few more centuries. “Business” began to be used to mean “a process of commercial transactions” in the 1700s. Then it took yet another century for a commercial establishment to be called a “business.” New uses of this word speed along like nobody’s business.  

OK, that’s it for today, nothing more to see here. Move along; go about your business.