Contextualizebeta

mean business

verb

Definitions

  1. To be serious, especially where achieving a specific end against opposition is concerned.

    • Say in a week from now, I will undertake to deliver this most marvellous masterpiece, if 'Look here, 'Tony, I mean business, if you don't.
    • Realising the L.C.R. meant business, the E.L.R. hastily withdrew from the negotiations and left the L.P.J.R. to make the best terms it could with the Carlisle company, […].
    • Lorena Bobbit only did what men do to each other all the time: She showed an asshole she meant business.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for mean business. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA