Advertisement

Advertisement

View synonyms for mean business

mean business



Discover More

Idioms and Phrases

Be in earnest. For example, He really means business with this deadline . This idiom uses business in the sense of “a serious endeavor.” [Mid-1800s]
Discover More

Example Sentences

Her brown-velvet eyes often soothed me, although her eyebrows added to her every demand: “I mean business!”

John Kerry means business, and though their comments were brief, it seems that Livni and Erekat also mean business.

Death of the I-mean-business-older dude (and subsequent substance abuse).

She'll soon wilt when she sees we mean business—either go, or take a chaperon, or marry the man, whichever she prefers.

I glanced from this Goliath to his little, bird-eyed spouse, and wondered if he had ever tried to mean business with her.

A bill stamp is a thing that often turns up convenient with gents as mean business like Mr. Vavasor and you.

The first thing I heard Mr. Davis say, was "Damn mean business."

It was equivalent to saying to the officer that the execution of the law was a mean business.

Advertisement

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement