business-like

business-like (comparative more business-like, superlative most business-like)

1. Alternative form of businesslike.
   • 1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter VIII, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 139:

     Mr. Meadows was a short square man, with a business-like walk, a steady eye, a leathery, unvarying complexion.

   • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave I. Marley’s Ghost.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 31:

     “You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,” Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference.

   • 1913, Emilie Benson Knipe, Alden Arthur Knipe, Beatrice of Denewood: A Sequel to “The Lucky Sixpence”, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., page 209:

     “Parlez-vouses or our own men?” demanded the Squire in a business-like tone.

   • 1919, Henry B[lake] Fuller, “Cope Absent from a Wedding”, in Bertram Cope’s Year: A Novel, Chicago, Ill.: Ralph Fletcher Seymour, The Alderbrink Press, →OCLC, pages 266–267:

     Then there would be a rapid ten-day wedding-journey, followed by a prompt, business-like occupancy of the new apartment on the first of May exactly.