affairs

1. 1.

   matters of personal concern

   “get his affairs in order”

   Synonymspersonal businesspersonal matters

   Broaderconcern

   Narrowerdirty linen
2. 2.

   transactions of professional or public interest

   “news of current affairs”

   “great affairs of state”

   Broadertransaction

   Narrowerworld affairspolitics

Other forms of affairs

plural

affairses·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about affairs

What does affairs mean?

affairs means "matters of personal concern". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in affairs?

affairs has 2 syllables: af-fairs. The stress falls on "fairs". In IPA it is /əˈfɛɹz/.

What is another word for affairs?

Close synonyms include personal business, personal matters. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is affairs a common word?

affairs is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.