negotious

From Latin negotiosus.

negotious (comparative more negotious, superlative most negotious)

1. (obsolete) Engaged in much business; busy.
   • 1642, R. Baker, transl., Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus:

     But if the Prince have no ayme at augmentation by new acquests and stands not so much in feare of externall enemies, as of friends at home, he then ought to let the people enjoy a negotious ease, of buildings, and playes, and such like things.

   • 1812, John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, page 696:

     My ever most honourable good Lord, " When I first importuned your most excellent Lordship, it was in a most negotious juncture of time, your Honour jast ready to enter into your coach ; yet this hindred not, but your goodness was pleased to go up straitway, and write a letter to the Lord Bishop.

   • 1890, The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary:

     Many works (LXX.) going forward at once; a negotious man was he.

   • 1907, Walter Rye, State Papers Relating to Musters, Beacons, Shipmoney, &c. in Norfolk: From 1626 Chiefly to the Beginning of the Civil War, page 28:

     We receyved at Thetford in ye time of the Assises soe many sevrall letters, some of them from ye Lords of ye Counsell, and others from your Lord, as in ye soe negotious a time we mistooke our selves in ye directions of our answers,...

2. (obsolete) Requiring meticulous attention to detail.
   • 1959, A. G. Dickens, Lollards & Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509-58, →ISBN, page 123:

     Thus would they have ruffled & rashed in their relatives, Searching night and day manipulus curatorum, With the exornatory of Curates and many inventives, As Dormi recuré and Gesta Romanorum, With the annal usage of Ceremones parati, And the negotious search of Sermones discipuli, And many mo than these besides their decrees, With constitutions and decretals, with suche suttle lyes.

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, Essayes - Volumes 5-6, page 68:

     Both which conditions being removed, let them not looke for any combersome, negotious and carefull matter at my hands (for I have denounced open warre unto all manner of carke and care) I am commodiously easie and ready in times of any bodies necessitie.

   • 1831, Thomas Smart Hughes (Isaac Barros), The Works of Dr. Isaac Barrow - Volume 5, page 374:

     ...for that it chiefly, and in a manner only requireth of us a rational and spiritual service, consisting in performance of substantial duties, plainly necessary or profitable; not withdrawing us from the practice of solid piety and virtue by obligations to a tedious observance of many external rites; not spending the vigour of our minds upon superficial formalities, (or negotious scrupulosities, as Tertullian termeth them,) such as serve only to amuse childish fancies, or to depress slavish spirits.

3. Allowing for or capable of negotiation.
   • 1951, Conference on World Land Tenure Problems at the University of Wisconsin, October 8 to November 20, 1951: Workshop reports:

     The reason why all Japanese tenancy measures were frustrated in the past was that the price of land was left negotious between landlord and tenant, and that when the former was willing to sell land the transaction was on his own terms only.

   • 1969, California Legislature Assembly Education Committee, Subcommittee on Educational Environment, Elementary & secondary faculty relations, page 241:

     We would also urge clarification from the Legislature as to the extent that the Winton Act establishes a negotious process, specifically that it does not require binding bilateral, time-certain contracts from the school board as evidence of good faith in the meeting and conferring process.

   • 1977 January-March, “Towards a chronology of Aulus Gellius”, in Latomus, volume 36, number 1:

     This seems to imply that by then at least one (") of Gellius' children was of negotious age, having taken the manly toga.

• negotiate