busybody

plural busybodies · alternative busy body

1. Someone who interferes with others; one who is nosy, intrusive or meddlesome.

   Se that none of you ſuffre as a murtherer / or as a thefe / or an evyll doar / or as a buſybody in wother mens matters.

   1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, 1 Peter iiij:[15], folio ccxc, verso

   2 more examples

   Candidly speaking, I thought her a little busy-body; but her father, blind like other parents, seemed perfectly content to let her wait on him, and even wonderfully soothed by her offices.

   1853 January, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Paulina”, in Villette. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, page 22

   But I couldn’t—and I can’t tell you, either, what it’s meant to me these two years to believe you were going to marry him, and be told every week by some busybody that your engagement was on the point of being announced.

   1915, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, “Love Takes Up the Glass of Time”, in Anne of the Island, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, →OCLC, page 325

   Synonyms: marplot, meddler, kibitzer, nosy parker

2. A device consisting of three mirrors that, when attached to the wall of a house, allows an occupant to see who is at the front door without a direct line of sight.

present singular third person busybodies · participle present busybodying · participle past busybodied · past busybodied · alternative busy body

1. intransitiveTo meddle or interfere.