noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a business appointment
▪
Dennis had an early-morning business appointment with a client.
a business centre
▪
The company has branches worldwide in fifteen major business centres.
a business client
▪
Competition for business clients between travel companies is keen.
a business customer (= customers that are businesses )
▪
the bank’s major business customers
a business deal
▪
He lost a fortune in an unwise business deal.
a business letter
▪
In business letters you often use phrases such as ‘I would be grateful if ...’.
a business loan (= money lent to a business )
▪
The bank offers a range of business loans to meet the needs of small businesses.
a business meeting
▪
He had to go into town for a business meeting.
a business perspective
▪
I think it was a good thing to do, from a business perspective.
a business plan
▪
We’ve developed a business plan to take over the company.
a business proposition
▪
Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about my business proposition?
a business strategy
▪
This is a high-risk business strategy.
a business trip
▪
I’m on a business trip with my boss.
a business/economic/election etc cycle (= related events in business, the economy etc that repeat themselves over a certain period )
▪
the presidential election cycle
a business/financial/media etc empire
▪
His business empire is now worth over $20 billion.
a business/professional relationship
▪
Both companies want to continue their business relationship into the future.
a business/working lunch (= a lunch during which you also do business )
▪
She was having a business lunch with a customer.
a commercial/business enterprise
▪
If you are setting up your own business enterprise, your bank can help.
a company goes bankrupt/goes out of business (= stops doing business after losing too much money )
a family business (= one run by members of a family )
▪
My parents expected me to join the family business.
a financial/business/commercial district (= where there are a lot of banks and other businesses )
▪
He works in San Francisco’s financial district.
a struggling artist/writer/business
a ticklish business
▪
Handling awkward neighbours can be a ticklish business .
a union/business leader
▪
Business leaders welcomed a cut in the interest rate.
a viable business
▪
He turned the farm into a viable business.
an economic/military/business/political etc objective
▪
We have made good progress towards meeting our business objectives.
big business
▪
Dieting has become big business.
business card
business class
business confidence (= that businesses have when the economic situation is good )
▪
The region has gained 46,000 jobs and business confidence is high.
business end
▪
the business end of a gun
business expertise (= skill at operating a business or company )
▪
The company took him on for his business expertise.
business hours
business park
business person
business plan
business school
business sense (= an ability to make good decisions in business )
▪
Few young people have much business sense.
business software
▪
He has been training people in the use of business software since 1983.
business studies
business suit
business travel
▪
Business travel often took him away from his family.
business users
▪
The hotel caters mainly to business users.
Business...booming
▪
Business was booming , and money wasn’t a problem.
business/commercial activity
▪
Internet shopping is a rapidly developing area of business activity.
business/commercial expansion
▪
These new measures could limit business expansion.
business/commercial instinct
▪
I have faith in your business instinct.
business/commercial venture
business/political/financial etc acumen
▪
The firm’s success is largely due to Brannon’s commercial acumen.
catering business/service etc
combine business with pleasure (= work and enjoy yourself at the same time )
conduct (a) business
▪
The company had been conducting a lot of business in Latin America.
cross-border trade/business etc
do business (= buy and sell goods, or provide services )
▪
The company does a lot of business in China.
drum up business (= get more work and sales )
▪
The organization is using the event to drum up business .
economic/industrial/business etc development
▪
The US has been keen to encourage economic development in Egypt.
entertainment/business expenses
▪
The president receives an unspecified allowance for business and entertainment expenses.
for business/research etc purposes
▪
About one in five of all trips are made for business purposes.
from an economic/financial/business point of view
▪
From a financial point of view, the concert was a disaster.
funny business
▪
Remember, Marvin, no funny business while we’re out.
going about their business
▪
The villagers were going about their business as usual.
going into business (= starting a business )
▪
She’s thinking of going into business .
investment/financial/business analyst
▪
Cleary has been working as a computer analyst in Winchester.
laborious process/task/business etc
▪
Collecting the raw materials proved a long and laborious task.
▪
the laborious business of drying the crops
line of work/business
▪
What line of business is he in?
lucrative business/market/contract etc
▪
He inherited a lucrative business from his father.
media/property/business/newspaper tycoon
▪
a multi-millionaire property tycoon
mix business with pleasure (= combine business and social activities at the same time )
▪
I don’t like to mix business with pleasure .
open for business
▪
After the security alert, most of the firms affected were open for business on Monday morning.
pitch for business/contracts/custom etc
▪
Booksellers are keen to pitch for school business.
professional/business/medical ethics (= the moral rules relating to a particular profession )
▪
public concern about medical ethics
▪
a code of ethics
risky business
▪
Buying a secondhand car is a risky business .
sb’s business affairs
▪
After dad retired, I managed his estate and business affairs.
sb’s work/business/school address
▪
I sent the letter to her work address.
▪
My business address is on my card.
show business
▪
Phyllis always wanted to be in show business.
sordid business/affair/story etc
▪
The whole sordid affair came out in the press.
▪
She discovered the truth about his sordid past.
▪
I want to hear all the sordid details !
sports/style/business/travel etc section (= particular part of a newspaper )
start a business/company/firm etc
▪
She wanted to start her own catering business.
study law/business/history etc (= study a subject at a school or university )
▪
Anna is studying French literature.
talk sport/politics/business etc
▪
‘Let’s not talk politics now,’ said Hugh impatiently.
the business environment
▪
In today’s fast-moving business environment, companies must be flexible.
the business/financial side
▪
Geller handles the business side of things.
the business/scientific/academic etc community
▪
The idea has received intense interest from the business community.
the entertainment business/industry
▪
The union represents people who work in the entertainment industry.
the health/business/money etc aspect
▪
the health aspects of chemical accidents
▪
I’m not very interested in the business aspect.
the retail trade/business
▪
a manager with twenty years’ experience in the retail business
theatre/business etc people (= people who work or are involved in the theatre etc )
▪
The hotel was full of business people.
tout for business/custom British English (= look for customers )
▪
Minicab drivers are not allowed to tout for business.
urgent business
▪
Nenna told them that she had urgent business on the other side of London.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
big
▪
It is rare for any big business to take initiatives like that on its own.
▪
Nevertheless, in I978 on Wall Street it was flaky to think that home mortgages could be big business .
▪
Ocean racing is big business involving vast amounts of money.
▪
This is big business , after all.
▪
By the beginning of the present decade tourism was very big business indeed.
▪
Some will resign from big business and devote themselves to turning an idea or hobby into a business of their own.
▪
We are probably also acquainted with examples where local and national government, large and big business impinge on the local community.
▪
The city was quickly becoming a center of big money and business , both legal and illegal.
local
▪
It's hoped that more cameras will be installed, financed by local businesses .
▪
A silent auction featured many items donated by local businesses .
▪
They would co-ordinate the work of government and council agencies, local businesses , churches and voluntary groups.
▪
By breaking through regulatory barriers, it is seeking to enter the local telephone business .
▪
Second, local firms paid business rates on their property.
▪
It does no harm to write to the nearest local residents and businesses , but generally this is a long shot.
▪
All the students are undertaking work placements in local businesses one day a week for 12 weeks.
new
▪
The Conference Board, a New York-based business research group, held a major diversity conference this spring.
▪
Or a trade may be used not to do new business , but to transfer a credit balance between accounts.
▪
He explained his plans for his new business .
▪
Our recent run of outstanding new business figures will continue to provide a growing quality earnings stream for many years to come.
▪
In July, Lloyds Abbey Life posted first-half new business figures that were better than many of its competitors.
▪
All new businesses have to spend heavily to establish themselves.
▪
Any new business venture takes time to establish.-Sufficient working capital to survive.
serious
▪
Government is a serious business , and his Liberal Democrats are in no way ready for it.
▪
It is easy to laugh, but it is serious business .
▪
Buying a home, although a serious business , can be straight forward, even fun.
▪
For them the climb was a serious business .
▪
But it would not be polite to get down to such serious business as soon as the chief appeared.
▪
Quality is a serious and difficult business .
▪
Save yourself for the serious business of eating. 7 Treat alcohol with care.
▪
At the networks, a rigid line separated news from entertainment; news was considered serious and important business .
small
▪
As a result of the research, it was clear that there was some discrimination against small businesses in West Belfast.
▪
But it also is threatening the livelihoods of many small business operators in San Diego and elsewhere.
▪
After a short while he identified a small bacon-curing business that he felt was worth investing in.
▪
According to Cox, nearly one job is lost among subcontractors and small service businesses for every manufacturing job that goes away.
▪
I understand why the Government have maintained an exemption for small businesses , for which survival is of the essence.
▪
He runs City Hall like a small family business and keeps everybody on a short rein.
▪
This may help to explain the difficulty faced in involving small businesses in partnership activities.
▪
Frequently neither of these strategies will be practical for smaller businesses .
whole
▪
The whole business of eating out in restaurants she considered a worryingly overrated activity.
▪
Up to now, Vyner has been joint managing director of the whole business , along with David Quarmby.
▪
This turnabout is affecting the whole ski business in Britain, not least the magazines.
▪
I can understand why the whole phlogiston business would have been thought less than important in practical terms.
▪
How you must hate this whole business !
▪
I was so focused on setting the business up, I forgot I was a key to the whole business.
▪
It's the end of the whole business .
▪
The whole business with what happened to the baseball cards.
■ NOUN
activity
▪
The only stipulation is that the topic must have some relationship to business activity or current affairs.
▪
These relate to her previous business activities in the gas industry, which she now says she is reforming.
▪
Other business activity also is stirring on the commercial half of the 60-acre Town Center site, Malone said.
▪
These total plans are made up from the individual plans of every business activity of the corporation.
▪
Selling an invention, or even suppressing one, is quite as legal as your own business activities .
▪
Floirat is survived by a daughter and a grandson, who has assumed some of his business activities .
▪
Advocates argue that the absence of burdensome regulatory restrictions would stimulate new business activity .
community
▪
Some members of the government and the business community are sceptical regarding the act's real benefits to the country.
▪
Neighborhood leaders remembered other times the white business community pursued its dreams without regard for the people who lived nearby.
▪
Performance is relatively easy to measure and understand in the business community .
▪
But opposition from the business community to increasing the minimum wage is already in place.
▪
But last night a spokesman for the Portadown business community pledged that life would go on despite the outrage.
▪
Meanwhile, however, the business community has come out four-square behind the reforms.
▪
We want an agreement that promotes business and does not impose burdens or barriers upon the business community .
▪
It is thus far the most widely accepted approach in the business community .
core
▪
Our strategy is to focus all our resources on the two core businesses of spirits and beers.
▪
PSINet has said it wants to pare back to its core business of providing Internet access to business.
▪
Astra makes more sense as a public company than the Salim Group, mainly because its core businesses are obvious and integrated.
▪
Additionally, entire segments of some companies will be eliminated as companies identify and refocus on their core business .
▪
The supermarkets then found that they could charge bigger margins on goods that were peripheral to their core business , processed foods.
▪
One of its core businesses was renting telephones.
▪
Meeting customer needs' Unlike many of our competitors, the provision of credit information has always been our core business .
▪
The findings indicate why groups such as the Pearl are finding it heavy going in their core business activity.
deal
▪
Negotiation is at the heart of all big business deals and even the little ones too.
▪
In February 1994, the investigation was broadened to other Symington business deals .
▪
With a contented sigh, he lost himself in a colourful reverie of big business deals and boardroom power games.
▪
I would not borrow money for a business deal even if it might be profitable.
▪
A chance, too, perhaps, to sort out the business deal they had talked about last week.
▪
Clarisa had told me her father was upset because some one had cheated him on a business deal .
▪
Though his early death traumatised Pierre, his shrewd business deals secured the family a $ 1m fortune.
▪
The Clintons have taken a terrible pounding for their ethics, their business deals , their often-unfortunate choice of allies.
development
▪
The company will maintain a strategic manufacturing agreement with the startup and joint business development arrangements.
▪
Matthew Lutz, 61, vice chairman and business development manager of Magnum, who held a similar position with Hunter.
▪
The business development function is one way to increase a company's ability to seize opportunities.
▪
Quarmby will now be responsible for business development and managing director of group services, coordinating services to all group companies.
▪
Managers can gauge the clarity of focus in a business development group by carrying out a simple exercise.
▪
They found their champion in Wayne Rowley, who was then the director of new business development for the chamber.
▪
If your business card says business development , what should you do all day?
▪
From that site, the company said, it will also manage worldwide drug regulatory affairs, business development and international marketing.
leader
▪
This poses a conundrum for businesses leaders wanting to take advantage of, for example, the Research and Development tax credit.
▪
Consider the last time up-and-coming business leaders from the Young Presidents Organization made a group trip here.
▪
Falun Gong's decision to stage demonstrations here has created a vexing dilemma for Hong Kong officials and business leaders .
▪
The list profiled 30 online business-to-business leaders .
▪
This is a favorite of politicians, business leaders and teacher conference speakers.
▪
The business leaders wanted the state to loosen its purse strings and give the schools' budgets a healthy boost.
▪
They include members of Congress, mayors, governors, community leaders , business leaders and reporters.
music
▪
Strip away the insincerity and the hype from the music business and see it for what it is, a jungle.
▪
Competitions are the fast food of the music business .
▪
Actually he hates the music business , and that whole London scene.
▪
So I got out of the music business for ten years.
▪
The rest of the Condemned were still nonentities, the clerks and Civil Servants of the music business .
▪
Solowka thinks Charman was unnaturally suspicious of anyone connected with the music business .
▪
It is as much a part of the music business as a 12-inch re-mix.
people
▪
Why do the Government not act on the huge injustices currently affecting business people , such as original lessee liability?
▪
The hubbub in the reception area was considerable among the gathering of journalists, show business people , and golfers.
▪
There are more business people and other professionals, homemakers and clergy in the Lone Star brigade.
▪
As always with such radical experiments, business people feared for their prosperity, equating passing traffic with increased turnover.
▪
Ubeunon priests, business people , journalists: Whatever our intentions, we were all enmeshed in the system.
▪
They must operate on a good deal less than total information; 70 percent is considered high availability for business people .
▪
In this sense, the global Journal levels the business playing field between business people in Peoria and Pretoria.
plan
▪
Applicants are attached to a voluntary business advisor in their own area who will assist them with their initial business plan .
▪
Avon was compulsively focused on long-term business plans .
▪
The company's five-year business plan includes publishing their own partworks while continuing to package continuity series and books.
▪
Each would prepare a business plan that included sales projections, budget requirements, and net profitability.
▪
Highly confidential and sensitive matters - such as business plans , projections or formulae - which must not be used.
▪
Never forget that profit is the goal of a good business plan .
▪
It expects to present a new business plan to its board by the end of the month.
▪
Understanding these potential dangers will help you prepare your business plan and stick to it.
school
▪
The business schools are unanimous that, under the e-froth, something fundamental is changing.
▪
Even the business schools are coming around to that point of view.
▪
Establish which is the best business school in the country and hire its best professor at double his or her current salary.
▪
After all, its merits were preached by our business schools for several decades.
▪
Robin Smith has been appointed head of postgraduate programmes at Newcastle Polytechnic's business school .
▪
For instance, most of our business schools talk a good game when it comes to globalization.
▪
The biggest problems business schools have are their experts.
▪
That would be akin to the business school model of giving away the razor while charging for the blades.
strategy
▪
In what ways are the changes related to changes in the company's business strategy ? 10.
▪
She also will play an important role in organizational and leadership development and in developing Verio's business strategy .
▪
Clarification of issues such as these should be of great significance to both business strategy and government policy.
▪
Should your management bet the company on a high-risk business strategy ?
▪
Instead they are supposed to discuss future business strategy .
▪
Newbridge officials said they are working out a business strategy with their prospective partner, whom they declined to name.
▪
Managers would do better to think of just two kinds of business strategy - competitive and corporate.
▪
What is the role of your work group in helping your company to implement its business strategy ? 9.
study
▪
In business studies there were generally six or so applicants for each place.
▪
Plans exist to extend the list of short courses to business studies , geography, history, media studies and home economics.
▪
In due course I left Varndean and went to do business studies at Sussex University.
▪
College had been a first degree in law at Berkeley followed by a year at Columbia in New York doing business studies .
trip
▪
He was on a business trip to California.
▪
Scheduled an out-of-town business trip .
▪
We're over here on a business trip .
▪
One afternoon I got home from a business trip , and the first thing I did was check my voice mail.
▪
The letter would reach him on his business trip .
▪
Eugene had brought the map back after a business trip , and Wyatt had promptly memorized many of the stops.
▪
A school visit to the Ashmolean and a business trip to Morris Motors comprised his entire experience of the city.
▪
He set off on a business trip .
world
▪
Love quickly became an important figure in the business world .
▪
Since joining the business world I have seen similar techniques evoke similarly successful results.
▪
A further clue may lie in the interpretation of accountability in the business world .
▪
And he has learned he still needs to go out to lunch occasionally, just to feel part of the business world .
▪
On a parallel track, the business world is well catered for with several compatible products on the two systems.
▪
One of your greatest challenges is to make sure you are still at the heart of the business world .
▪
Good shape despite the dire forecasts still being made by much of the business world ?
▪
When you get an office, you will be located in a business world .
■ VERB
build
▪
According to press reports, Dounreay is attempting to build up its foreign business to £25 million.
▪
She built her future business on the strength of that first success.
▪
Verisign has already built a tidy business selling two types of digital signatures: personal and site certificates.
▪
Yet many would-be entrepreneurs are often shocked when they discover the importance marketing has assumed-in building any new business .
▪
Through word of mouth and demand from customers, they've built up a sizable business with five drivers.
▪
Today, we have built a very successful business .
▪
Maybe such positions should be accepted as part of the price for building global businesses .
▪
Rocco Forte will concentrate and focus on building the businesses .
carry
▪
A company owned and run by Mr and Mrs Bunch carried on the business of purchase and resale of bulk butter.
▪
The international air corridors are filled with jumbo jets carrying tourists, business people, airline personnel and others.
▪
You are carrying on a business if you sell or barter any of the livestock or their produce.
▪
If you had left well alone and let me carry on my business I wouldn't be here.
▪
Banks carrying on offshore banking business in Labuan are not subject to exchange controls.
▪
Fernando Serra could make all the threats he liked but he couldn't stop her carrying on her business .
▪
Generally you have two choices: where your debtor lives or carries on his business , or where the debt was incurred.
▪
The smaller parish or community council may prefer to carry out all business through the full council instead of appointing committees.
do
▪
We did our business plans based on 50 per cent.
▪
But it reopened after a state judge ruled this month that the cooperative could do business under the tenets of Proposition 215.
▪
I was usually out working when he did his business each morning.
▪
To what degree does big business prevail in our economy?
▪
The family did well when the business was sold to U. S. Steel.
▪
Dooley made popcorn, and Barnabas did his business at the hedge with great expediency.
▪
Good Housekeeping magazine seal of approval that makes it easier for countries to borrow and do business abroad.
▪
California is a difficult place in which to do business .
mind
▪
His life had been well-ordered and reasonably happy, he thought, by minding his own business .
▪
I want you all to put that damn thing out now and go on home and mind your own business .
▪
I asked her if he'd returned home and she told me to mind my own business .
▪
Folks in Montana tend to value their privacy, to the point that minding your own business is considered a virtue.
▪
She hoped he didn't interpret them as telling him to mind his own business .
▪
Running out of time, minding its own business , looking the other way.
▪
It's a bit disconcerting to be minding your own business .
▪
When it comes to minding their own business , Montanans are of a like mind.
own
▪
If you work as a sales assistant, but dream of owning your own business , what are you doing about it?
▪
They have to think like a businessman; act like they own the business in the way they run it.
▪
It can be traced back to nineteenth-century philanthropists like the early socialist entrepreneur Robert Owen and various Quaker-#owned businesses .
▪
It is a form of business organization wherein two or more individuals agree to own and operate a business.
▪
Today, his family owns 47% of the business .
▪
Some believe Proposition 209 has had a paralyzing effect on women-and minority-#owned businesses .
▪
About ten thousand people were moved out, not counting the ones who owned small businesses along the edge.
▪
There are distributors who own their own businesses and employees who work in our offices and plants around the world.
run
▪
You simply buy the rights to run a known-name business .
▪
Verio will also provide customers with a comprehensive range of productivity-enhancing managed services needed to run their online business effectively.
▪
She runs a natural therapy business in nearby Brereton Heath.
▪
They almost ran him out of business , until the old man began training Malays to do the work.
▪
Although he ostensibly ran his own business , all of his assets were fully encumbered.
▪
Colchester Business Enterprise Agency 0206-48833: free advice for those starting or running their own business , courses and workshops.
▪
In most cases these people will have no training in the financial or legal implications of running a business for profit.
set
▪
The development of pub retailing has shown a corrective instinct for seeking to set a purpose built business in the right location.
▪
I worked with him for some time before we left to set up our business .
▪
But it is Michael Jackson's deal which may set precedents the music business will later regret.
▪
I was so focused on setting the business up, I forgot I was a key to the whole business.
▪
After finishing his apprenticeship he set up a business with this uncle, but it failed.
▪
It will also have learned a few lessons in how not to go about setting up a business .
▪
In 1862 Smith set up in business on his own account.
▪
In 1820, with a growing family, he decided to set up his own business .
start
▪
You're just starting your farming business .
▪
Like many entrepreneurs on a shoestring, they are attempting to start a business while they continue to work full-time jobs.
▪
But we can't start the serious business until the brandy arrives.
▪
Dave and Marge reached their goal by starting a business that could prosper anywhere, small town or large.
▪
Should I go out on my own and start a business , or would the insecurity be unbearable?
▪
I was working the swing shift when Albert White said he knew a guy that was going to start a newspaper business .
▪
John started up in business again.
▪
For years, Kim Gerlich has tried to coax her parents and her husband into starting a family business .
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be minding your own business
▪
I was minding my own business, sleeping, when I heard something.
▪
It's a bit disconcerting to be minding your own business.
core business/activities/operations etc
▪
Additionally, entire segments of some companies will be eliminated as companies identify and refocus on their core business.
▪
But the single most reliable route to growth is probably to sell off everything but the core business.
▪
In all its acquisitions, Guinness has sought business opportunities that have enhanced and strengthened its core activities.
▪
None was big enough to become the core business of the company, Ousley says.
▪
Our strategy is to focus all our resources on the two core businesses of spirits and beers.
▪
This meant it could concentrate on two core businesses - security printing and heating and bathroom products.
▪
To maintain a high quality exploration portfolio focusing on core business areas and under-explored prospective basins.
▪
Will it be able to manage an acquisition outside its core business -- one in no need of fixing?
day-to-day work/business/life etc
▪
Also the day-to-day work of schools and the task of assessing pupils assumed a higher importance than the development of new curriculum.
▪
But since the arrival of Robins, he has taken a backseat role with day-to-day business being handled by the new chairman.
▪
Directors were given the exclusive right to manage the day-to-day business of the company.
▪
In our day-to-day lives, including day-to-day scientific lives, we have little need of such confirmed hypotheses.
▪
It also recognises that day-to-day business and executive authority is vested in line management.
▪
Justices, of course, are accustomed, as part of their day-to-day work, to assessing costs of comparatively small amounts.
▪
The problem arises because there is nothing in our day-to-day life to provide us with sufficient exercise.
▪
While with the Chargers for the past two years, McNeely oversaw the day-to-day business operations.
have a (good) head for figures/facts/business etc
like nobody's business
▪
People are buying Internet stocks like nobody's business.
lost sales/business/earnings etc
▪
A private parking garage in one building has lost business.
▪
Damaged stock means lost sales, and lost sales mean less profit.
▪
Foot-and-mouth has already cost £51million in lost sales of livestock.
▪
It's thought to have cost the Dickens and Jones department store £100,000 in lost business.
▪
It was estimated that the disruption cost retailers around £5m in lost sales.
▪
When Bogdanov refused, Mr Goddard said he intended to charge the company at least £1,650 to cover lost sales.
mean business
▪
But as the oil men realised that we meant business, seizures began to drop.
▪
But when it bites, it means business.
▪
For one local company it's meant business taking off like a rocket.
▪
One of the quintet not only means business but high-minded, selfless business.
▪
They looked as though they meant business.
▪
This does not necessarily mean businesses must avoid all such one-of-a-kinds whatever their nature.
▪
Those boys knew we meant business.
▪
Zhou had discarded his usual severe tunic for a gray Western business suit, and he meant business.
mind your own business
▪
I wish you'd stop interfering and mind your own business.
▪
Folks in Montana tend to value their privacy, to the point that minding your own business is considered a virtue.
▪
He also fired his lawyer and told civil libertarians to mind their own business.
▪
He had not minded his own business as a man of seventy in New York should do.
▪
His life had been well-ordered and reasonably happy, he thought, by minding his own business.
▪
I asked her if he'd returned home and she told me to mind my own business.
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I was minding my own business, sleeping, when I heard something.
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She hoped he didn't interpret them as telling him to mind his own business.
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Then I felt a fool and decided to leave it and mind my own business.
monkey business
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The proposal had become the victim of political monkey business and deceit.
small business/firm/farmer etc
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As a consequence, greater emphasis has been placed upon encouraging locally-based regeneration, and especially upon a revival of small firms.
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But it also is threatening the livelihoods of many small business operators in San Diego and elsewhere.
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Confiscatory taxes and overly complex tax regulations make it exceedingly difficult for small business to perform this basic function.
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On March 19 it passed a regulatory reform bill, which is intended to lighten the weight of government on small businesses.
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Paid holidays are 25 percent fewer in small firms and only half of this allowance is actually taken.
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The company also has expanded its offerings to help large and small businesses use the Internet and private computer networks.
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The Northern arm currently caters to the needs of more than 1,000 small businesses.
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The people believed, and many of them were putting money into improving their homes, modernizing their small businesses.
the business end (of sth)
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the business end of a gun
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But it was at the business end where the main difference lay.
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Her hair, left to its own devices to dry, looked like the business end of a witch's broom.
unfinished business
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Each of these women had left some unfinished business.
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However, during our hand-over General Churchill mentioned one piece of unfinished business.
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Obon is for closing off unfinished business, for restoring bonds, for healing and remembering.
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One bit of unfinished business was to obtain for Joe the Legion of Merit award.
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Seeing their own children in their teens may bring their own adolescence forcibly to mind, along with its unfinished business.
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Then he would be up and about, able to apply himself to unfinished business.
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There was definitely some unfinished business between the two of them, but he was extremely tired.
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Those people that you have unfinished business with.
walk-in business/clinic/centre etc
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The walk-in centre is the result of two years' struggle by an international group of scientists to realise an ideal.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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"Is this trip for business or pleasure?'' "Business, I'm afraid.''
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"What type of business are you in?'' "I run a catering company.''
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"Where's Michael?'' "He's at a business meeting.''
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Business in Europe has been badly affected by economic conditions in Asia.
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Business is really bad at the moment. They may have to sell some of their factories overseas.
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Business was good until June and then sales fell because people were on vacation.
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As an M.B.A. student, you study all aspects of business .
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Building the new highway will be good for business .
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Don and his wife run their own business .
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For kids, playing is serious business .
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Gerald left, saying he had some important business to attend to.
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He's been in the advertising business for over 20 years now, and he wants to get out.
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He handles the mail and all that business .
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His oldest daughter, 31, owns a small printing business in Fresno.
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His sons have worked in the family business for years.
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I don't want to argue about this any more -- I'm sick of the whole business .
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I have to go to Tokyo next month on business .
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I was in London last month because I had some business there.
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In our business the first rule is that the customer is always right.
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In the old days, when business was booming, he used to fly to New York twice a week.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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At the bottom of Rover's long-term failure is a hopelessly crude conception of what constitutes enterprise and business success.
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Few of us are fortunate enough to have a chance to try working with our partner before we go into business together.
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Hancock, a native of Great Britain, is a veteran of the computer business .
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His heirs developed the business to adapt to changing modes of transport.
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I made it my business to be there at dinner the following day.