[f. BUSY a. 5 + BODY.] An officious or meddlesome person; one who is improperly busy in other people’s affairs.
1526. Tindale, 1 Pet. iv. 15. Se that none of you suffre … as a busybody in other mens matters.
1530. Palsgr., 423/2. He his a busye body, il est entre-metteux.
1570. Dee, Math. Pref., 46. Vaine pratling busie bodies.
1679. Prance, Addit. Narr. Pop. Plot, 40. The Jesuites, who are the great Polypragmons, or Busie-bodies.
1710. Palmer, Proverbs, 356. A busiebody burns his own fingers.
1847. Disraeli, Tancred, VI. xi. 480. The most energetic men in Europe are mere busybodies.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 56. The habit of being a busybody and of doing another man’s business.
Hence Busybodied a., of the nature of a busybody, meddlesome (rare); Busybodying, vbl. sb., acting the busybody; ppl. a. acting as a busybody; Busybodyish; Busybodyism; Busybodyness.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., II. iv. § 23. It is not out of Curiosity, or Busybodinesse, to be medling in other mens Lines.
1812. G. Colman, Br. Grins, Lady of Wr., II. xvii. The busybodied, brainless knight.
1828. J. Wilson, in Blackw. Mag., XXIII. 129. Curiosity … and a habit of busybodyism.
a. 1849. Poe, Myst. Marie Roget, Wks. (1872), 226. Romantic busybodyism.
1853. Chamb. Jrnl., XX. 427/2. I shrink from the whole system of busy-bodying and scandal-mongering.
1863. Mrs. C. Clarke, Shaks. Char., vi. 160. A fussy, busy-bodying old woman.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., III. X. ii. 234. A rather impudent busybodyish fellow.
1882. ‘Vernon Lee,’ in Fraser’s Mag., XXVI. 53. All this was merely the result of a sort of humanistic tendency, a sort of intellectual busybodyness.
