otherwise engaged
5
4.6
- idiom
- Leave the brandy. "Madam, I told him you were otherwise engaged, but he would not wait!" Rose, successor to the departed Lily, now Mistress Tod William, looked daggers over one shoulder.
Examples
-
We got the bill while you were otherwise engaged, Ralph said.
Fiction book (2001) -
For example, a mother may have taught a child to tap her gently on the arm if the child needs her attention when she is otherwise engaged, but imagine thirty children tapping one teacher on the arm!
Academic text (1994) -
She was otherwise engaged.
Blog text (5) -
By 1942, the Fascist regime was otherwise engaged, and from 1946, the building of the great majority of the EUR became the responsibility of the Christian Democrat governments which held power in the postwar republic.
Academic text (2010) -
I'm afraid I can't join the meeting because I'm otherwise engaged at that time.
-
She won't be able to attend the party, as she is otherwise engaged with her family.
-
He can't answer your call right now because he is otherwise engaged with an important project.
Synonyms
126
3.4
Giving full attention to an activity or idea
75
1.8
Busy doing something and not free to do other things
Antonyms
How Available
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from the constituents: 'engaged' = busy/occupied and 'otherwise' = in other respects, so together they mean 'busy with something else'. This is a straightforward modifier + adjective composition following regular English patterns and would be clear to a B1 learner who knows both words.
Etymology
Otherwise engaged comes from the simple image of a person already taken by another task: engaged means 'busy' and otherwise means 'with something else'. So when someone is otherwise engaged they are 'busy' and cannot do the new thing.