mean business

present singular third person means business · participle present meaning business · participle past meant business · past meant business

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

   He projects his concern to all employees and he means business when he says the “buck stops here”.

   2002, Armando T. Atienza, Shrewd Business Tactics

   3 more examples

   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.

   1895, William Chambers, Robert Chambers, Chambers's journal

   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, […].

   1960 February 28, M. D. Greville and G. O. Holt, “Railway Development in Preston—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 125

   Lorena Bobbit only did what men do to each other all the time: She showed an asshole she meant business.

   1997, George Carlin, Brain Droppings, New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 102