Other forms: bustling, bustles, bustled
To bustle is to move about busily and noisily. Bustle about, a bustling market, the hustle and bustle.
The noise and the visible effort are both part of it — bustling is being busy in a way other people can see. Hustle and bustle is the fixed pair for the noise of a city. As a noun, a bustle is also the frame worn under a Victorian skirt to hold it out at the back, which is a quite separate word and a startling piece of engineering.
1verbbustleTo move about busily and noisily.
“Waiters bustled around the busy restaurant carrying plates and drinks.”
2nounframeA frame worn under a Victorian skirt.
“Victorian ladies wore a bustle under their skirts to make them stick out at the back.”
bustle is a busy movement.
Middle English bustlen is of uncertain origin, perhaps a frequentative of an older verb meaning to prepare. The dress-frame sense is separate and unexplained.
Middle English
bustlen
English, today
bustle
Built from
From Middle English bustlen, bustelen, bostlen, perhaps an alteration of busklen (> Modern English buskle), a frequentative of Middle English busken (“to prepare; make ready”), from Old Norse búa (“to prepare oneself”); or alternatively from a frequentative form of Middle English busten, bisten (“to buffet; pummel; dash; beat”) le. Compare also Icelandic bustla (“to splash; bustle”). The etymology of frame is unknown, perhaps related to busk (“strip in a corset”) or Buschel.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire