bustle

1. 1.

   move or cause to move energetically or busily

   “The cheerleaders bustled about excitingly before their performance”

   Synonymsbustle abouthustle

   Broadermove

Other forms of bustle

plural

bustles·

past tense

bustled·

present participle

bustling·

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 bustle

What does bustle mean?

bustle means "a rapid active commotion". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in bustle?

bustle has 2 syllables: bus-tle. The stress falls on "bus". In IPA it is /ˈbʌsəl/.

What is another word for bustle?

Close synonyms include hustle, flurry, ado, fuss, stir. 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 bustle a common word?

bustle is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.