Bustling

How to spell bustling

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bustling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bustling mean?

1. adjectiveFull of energetic and noisy activity; crowded and lively.
2. verbPresent participle of bustle: moving about in a busy, hurried way.

Bustling in a sentence

• adjective

  The bustling market was packed with shoppers by mid-morning.

• verb

  The waiters kept bustling between the kitchen and the crowded tables.

• adjective

  They opened the cafe on a bustling corner near the station.

• verb

  She was bustling around the house preparing for the guests.

Where does bustling come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This word grows out of the verb 'bustle', meaning to move about in a busy, hurried, energetic way. The history is a little tangled, but the most accepted route traces it to an earlier English form 'buskle', a frequentative built on 'busk', meaning to prepare or make ready, which itself was borrowed from the Old Norse 'buask', literally 'to prepare oneself'. Over the 1500s the spelling and sound settled into 'bustle', and the present participle 'bustling' came to describe places and people that are full of brisk, lively movement. Because the origin is partly obscure, scholars treat the precise path with some caution. The spelling trap lies in the silent-ish middle: the 't' is barely heard, so writers can be tempted to drop it or to insert an extra 'e' before the '-ling'.

How the word is built

• bustl- (from the verb bustle: to move energetically)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)