businessman

American  

[biz-nis-man] / ˈbɪz nɪsˌmæn /

noun

• businessmen
  plural

1. a man regularly employed in business, especially a white-collar worker, executive, or owner.

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businessman British  

/ ˈbɪznɪsˌmæn, -mən /

noun

1. a person, esp a man, engaged in commercial or industrial business, esp as an owner or executive

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Usage

There is a gender-neutral form, businessperson , but it does not appear to be very widely used. The plural business people is quite widely used, and if you wish to avoid being gender-specific, you could try recasting your sentence to use the plural

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• businessmen
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of businessman

First recorded in 1705–15; business + man

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

businessman businessmen

Magic Johnson is relentlessly positive, a quality that has served him well as a player, a businessman and even while living with HIV since 1991.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026

It remains unclear whether the businessman passed through an official health checkpoint when he crossed the border.

From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026

Maniscalco is an incredible businessman, and a pioneer in the craft of shouting a premise and then pausing until the audience agrees it’s a punchline.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026

But in Kenya the Zimbabwean businessman was viewed with great suspicion because of his closeness to Ruto - something expressed loudly on social media since his death.

From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026

Juster said one of his favorite customers using Salesforce.corn’s platform is a thirty-something small businessman in Shanghai, Justin Lu, and his company, Protime Consulting.

From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman

Diplomats had indicated that France had pushed for an end to restrictions on one of the businessmen, Alisher Usmanov.

From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026

As The Times wrote, “hundreds of motion picture celebrities and wealthy society and businessmen and women in Palm Springs appealed to Los Angeles for aid.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026

The lack of stigma among the Hawaiians, we learn, is cause for colonial concern: Father Damien’s death becomes a local scandal, and provokes a moral panic among the American businessmen who had bought Hawaiian land.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

In Malta, home to 70,000 offshore companies and the headquarters of some of the world’s largest gambling groups, she wielded her pen against ministers and businessmen.

From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026

Newly successful businessmen erected mansions, filled them with imported objets d’art, hung costly crystal chandeliers in every room, and encircled their properties with groves of graceful maple trees and fragrant magnolias.

From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson

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