a tall fur hat with a baglike ornament hanging from the top over the right side.
the bearskin hat worn by certain British guardsmen.
a tall fur helmet with a bag hanging from the top to the right side, worn by certain soldiers, usually hussars, as in the British Army
(not in official usage) another name for bearskin
First recorded in 1755–65; originally, a bushy wig; of obscure origin
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A thunderstorm threatened, the morning was muggy-hot and to wear a busby was to be almost drowned in sweat, but His Majesty's duty was clear.
From Time Magazine Archive
Passing the balcony of the Horse Guards Building where stood Mary, the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth, King George looked up from under his extinguisher of a busby and smiled.
From Time Magazine Archive
On the balcony at Buckingham Palace his perennial "shyness" was again observed; many Britons would have pledged their hearts blood that his uneasy fussing with the busby was genuine nervousness.
From Time Magazine Archive
Instead, he merely clapped on his head an enormous, extinguisher-like fur busby of the Welsh Guards, and walked round the corner, unescorted, from York House to St. James's proper.
From Time Magazine Archive
And the same click in the brain told Adam that his father was not a great man, that he was, indeed, a very strong-willed and concentrated little man wearing a huge busby.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
When Mitchell sang “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” he seemed to be floating on a Busby Berkeley cloud.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2026
Defence agent Sarah Loosemore said Robert Busby Evans had decided "it would be appropriate for these matters to be dealt with under the Canadian justice system".
From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2026
Busby Berkeley was the show’s dance director, but Lew Fields, the director, was dissatisfied with Berkeley’s work.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026
Fans chanted against the owners and held aloft banners as flares filled the air on Sir Matt Busby Way.
From Barron's ● Feb. 1, 2026
A column of shining black ants walked across a windowsill, their bottoms tilted upwards, like a line of mincing chorus girls in a Busby Berkeley musical.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
The scarlet of the massed bands of the Brigade of Guards and the bearskins of their busbies stood out boldly against this soft colour and hard white of the choir.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 27, 2012
As two Coldstream Guards in top-heavy busbies and flaming tunics paraded back & forth on sentry-go, the people talked among themselves in the hushed tones of relatives in a hospital anteroom.
From Time Magazine Archive
All earnest young men, perspiring in the broiling sun under immense fur busbies, the Foot Guards marched out of step and had difficulties with their bayonets while trying to execute a few simple evolutions.
From Time Magazine Archive
Out the portal, down the steps of the basilica marched detachments of Papal gendarmes in towering busbies.
From Time Magazine Archive
Woolly busbies is all very well, but they don’t look soldierly.
From Fix Bay'nets The Regiment in the Hills by Groome, William H. C.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
