Adjacent Words

busybody definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a person who meddles in the affairs of others [syn: busybody, nosy-parker, nosey-parker, quidnunc]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1526 an officious or inquisitive person

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. (pl. -ies) 1 a meddlesome person. 2 a mischief-maker.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Busybody Bus"y*bod`y (-b[o^]d`[y^]), n.; pl. Busybodies (-b[o^]d`[i^]z). One who officiously concerns himself with the affairs of others; a meddling person. And not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. --1 Tim. v. 13.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(busybodies) If you refer to someone as a busybody, you are criticizing the way they interfere in other people's affairs. (INFORMAL) This government is full of interfering busybodies. N-COUNT [disapproval]

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

biz'-i-bod-i (periergos, allotrioepiskopos): The word is found twice in Paulinic literature.: 1Ti 5:13, "not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies," and 2Th 3:11, "work not at all, but are busybodies." It is also found in 1Pe 4:15 the King James Version (the Revised Version (British and American) "meddler") "or as a busybody in other men's matters." If these passages be coupled with such others as Jas 3:2-10; 4:11; Eph 4:29,31; Tit 3:2, it becomes evident that sins against the eighth commandment were as common in the apostolic church as they are today. To this day backbiting is a common trait of oriental peoples. And it is this sin which is so repeatedly warned against by the apostles, as in direct conflict with the ethics of Christianity, and in violation of that spirit of brotherly love and mutual trust which Christ has enjoined on His followers, and which is the very marrow of the outward revelation of the Christian faith (1Co 13).

Henry E. Dosker

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Meddler, intermeddler, meddlesome person, officious person, prig.

Moby Thesaurus

Paul Pry, Peeping Tom, a tale-bearing animal, backseat driver, butt in, butt-in, buttinsky, eavesdropper, fool, gossip, gossip columnist, gossiper, gossipmonger, horn in, informer, inquirer, inquisitive, inquisitor, interfere, interlope, intermeddler, kibitzer, make, meddler, monkey with, mouse, newsmonger, newspaperman, nose, nosy Parker, peeper, poke, pragmatic, pragmatist, prier, pry, querier, querist, questioner, quidnunc, reporter, rubber, rubberneck, rubbernecker, rumormonger, scandalmonger, scopophiliac, sightseer, snook, snoop, snooper, tabby, talebearer, taleteller, tamper with, tattler, tattletale, telltale, tittle-tattler, voyeur, yenta