Busiest

How to spell busiest

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce busiest

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does busiest mean?

1. adjectiveHaving the most activity, work, or traffic, more than at any other time or place.

Busiest in a sentence

• Friday is the busiest day in the whole restaurant.

• The airport is at its busiest during the summer holidays.

Where does busiest come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the superlative of 'busy', which descends from the Old English 'bisig', meaning occupied, diligent, or careful. The word existed only in English and Low German, with no clear relatives in the wider family of languages, so its deeper origin is genuinely obscure. The spelling is the great trap here: in Old and Middle English the word was written with a wide range of vowels, and the form 'busy' eventually fixed in writing while the pronunciation drifted to a short 'i' sound, giving the famous mismatch between the written 'u' and the spoken 'biz'. When the superlative ending '-est' is added, the final 'y' of 'busy' turns into an 'i', producing 'busiest'. The 'u' that no longer matches any sound, plus the y-to-i change, are exactly why the word trips up confident writers.

How the word is built

• busy (from Old English bisig: occupied, diligent)
• -est (superlative suffix; y changes to i)