English → Latin
“busy” in Latin
occupōto occupy, fill, take up; to seize, invade, take possession of; to anticipate, make the first movesēdulusdiligent, industrious, zealous, unremitting, solicitous, assiduous, sedulousnāvusactive, busy, diligentindustriusactive, industrious, assiduous, diligentlabōriōsuslaborious, toilsome, demanding; industrious, hard-workingstrēnuusbrisk, nimble, quick, prompt, active; vigorous, strenuousācersharp, sour, bitter, pungent; keen, sharp, acute, sagacious; energetic, active, vigorousimpigeractive, energetic, diligentimportūnusinconvenient, unsuitable; annoying; rudemolestustroublesome, irksome, grievous, annoying, tiresome
Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864
busy
occupied, engaged, occupatus. Not busy, vacuus, otiosus. I am not busy, mihi vacat. To be busy with a thing, occupatum esse in aliqua re, intentum esse alicui rei. Busy with many things, distentus or obrutus plurimis occupationibus; negotiorum plenus. My thoughts are busy with him, sum cogito.
Active, stirring, sedulus, navus, industrius, laboriosus, strenuus, acer, impiger. A busy life, vita negotiosa, actuosa (actuosua used by Cic. only as epithet to virtus, and of the part of an oration which ought to be the most animated, etc. Sen. uses vita actuosa; animus actuosus and agilis. Cic. would have said for the first, operosa, semper agens aliquid et moliens; for the second, qui viget, omnia movet, et motu praeditus est sempiterno: activus is a post-classical, philosophical, and grammatical technical term, Krebs).
Meddling, importunus, molestus; qui aliena negotia curat.
Anxious, sollicitus, auxius.
busy v.
occupare, occupatum tenere, detinere. To busy one manifoldly, distinere, distringere (draw the mind this way and that, so that one can not bend his thoughts to the thing in hand). To busy one’s self with a thing, occupari aliqua re, versari in re or circa aliquid, se ponere in re; tractare, agere aliquid; dare se alicui rei: with all earnestness, urgere aliquid. To be busied with a thing [Vid. BUSY, above]. A busying one’s self with the poets, pertractatio poetarum. To have the thoughts busied with a person, aliquem cogitare: with something else, alias res agere.
Quick answer
- What is the Latin word for busy?
- The usual Latin words for “busy” are occupō, sēdulus, nāvus; also industrius, labōriōsus, strēnuus. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.
Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.