Busk

//bʌsk// name, noun, verb

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A feast of first fruits among the Creek tribe of Native Americans, celebrated when the corn is ripe enough to be eaten.
  2. 2
    A surname.
  3. 3
    A city in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine.
Noun
  1. 1
    A strip of metal, whalebone, wood, or other material, worn in the front of a corset to stiffen it.

    "Her long slit sleeves, stiffe buske, puffe verdingall, / Is all that makes her thus angelicall."

  2. 2
    A kind of linen. obsolete

    "Busk, a kind of table linen, occurs first in 1458, and occasionally afterwards."

  3. 3
    A corset. broadly

    "Off with that happy busk, which I envie, / That still can be, and still can stand so nigh."

Verb
  1. 1
    To solicit money by entertaining the public in the street or in public transport. UK, especially, intransitive
  2. 2
    To prepare; to make ready; to array; to dress. Northern-England, Scotland, transitive

    "Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride."

  3. 3
    play music in a public place and solicit money for it wordnet
  4. 4
    To sell articles such as obscene books in public houses etc. obsolete, transitive

    "The frothy orator, who busked his tales In quackish pomp of noisy words"

  5. 5
    To go; to direct one's course. Northern-England, Scotland

    "Ye might have busked you to Huntly-banks."

Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    To tack, cruise about.

Etymology

Etymology 1

Apparently from French busquer or Spanish buscar.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from French busc, from Italian busco (“splinter”).

Etymology 3

Etymology unknown.

Etymology 4

From Middle English busken, from Old Norse búask, reflexive of búa (“to prepare”); compare bound for a derivation from búa's past participle and basken for a similar formation from an Old Norse reflexive.

Etymology 5

From Creek puskita, pusketv (“a fast”).

Etymology 6

Borrowed from Danish and Swedish Busk; alternatively, it could be an English topographic surname for someone who lived by a bush, from Old Norse buskr (“bush”).

Etymology 7

From Ukrainian Буськ (Busʹk).

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