As we’ve seen with 家中 (iejū: all over the house, the whole family), you can sometimes add the suffix -中 even to kanji standing alone:
話し (hanashi: talk, speech) 話し中 (hanashichū: in the midst of
speaking; busy (phone))
talk + during
In the following word, you might think another singleton teamed up with -中:
戦中 (senchū: during the war) war + during
In this case, however, 戦 is an abbreviation of 戦争 (sensō: war). Japanese people also use 戦争中 (sensōchū) as a way of saying “during the war.”
Finally, we come to this great word:
忙中 (bōchū: during the busyness of work) busy + during
How Japanese this is! It assumes that busyness refers to work.
For More on Japanese and Busyness …
The compound 忙中 abbreviates a charming (and very formal) expression: 御多忙中 (gota-bōchū: while you are so busy, in the midst of your work). Here, 御 is the kanji for the honorific go-, which usually appears in hiragana.
