bus
- 1A large motor vehicle that carries many passengers by road, on local routes or for long-distance travel.
She missed the bus and had to wait twenty minutes for the next one.
The city added electric buses to its downtown routes last year.
UsageSay by bus without the, take the bus, and usually get on or get off a bus.
- 2A shared electrical or communication connection linking several circuits, components, or computers, including a network built around such a connection.
The motherboard's data bus transfers information between the processor and memory.
All the generators feed into a common bus at the substation.
Note
A figure of speech that became hardware. The electrical bus is short for busbar, a conductor shared by every circuit joined to it; like the passenger vehicle, its name goes back to omnibus. You meet it in compounds such as data bus, and busbar and electrical bus are its fuller names. The networking sense of a single shared cable extends the same image.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Electrical bus is a shortened form of busbar. pure.strath.ac.uk
- The electrical and computing term ultimately derives from omnibus. technav.ieee.org
- 3To travel by bus.
Many commuters bus into the city rather than drive.
She buses to campus when the weather turns bad.
UsageUsually bus to or bus into a place. Both buses and busses are correct spellings.
Note
Compare the transitive verb, where someone else does the transporting.
Less common meanings
- 4To transport people by bus, including (in the US) taking students by bus to a more distant school to achieve racial integration.
The hotel bused guests to the conference center every hour.
Organizers will bus volunteers between the two venues.
UsageUse bus someone to a place or bus someone in from elsewhere. The past tense and past participle are bused or bussed.
Similarshuttle, ferry, transport
Note
With in, it often turns accusatory, as when parties are charged with bussing in voters from other wards to swing an election. In the US, children who were bused were often taken to distant schools to integrate them racially.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- In the United States, school desegregation busing transported children to more distant schools to achieve racial integration. en.wikipedia.org
- 5To clear dirty dishes and leftovers from tables in a restaurant, or to work doing this.
A server bused our table the moment we stood up.
New hires learn to bus tables before they ever take an order.
UsageUsually bus tables.
Similarclear
Oppositeset
Note
A separate branch of the word. It is a back-formation from busboy, itself from omnibus in the sense of an assistant waiter, not a use of the vehicle. Its usual object is tables, as when a character in Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys (2019) is hired to bus tables. This is American restaurant vocabulary, and elsewhere clear is the plain alternative.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- The restaurant verb is a separate etymological branch, formed by back-formation from busboy. en.wiktionary.org
- Busboy derives from omnibus meaning an assistant waiter, rather than directly from the vehicle sense. listserv.linguistlist.org
- Colson Whitehead wrote The Nickel Boys, first published in 2019. global.penguinrandomhouse.com
- A character in the novel is hired to bus tables; the wording occurs in narration. penguinrandomhousesecondaryeducation.com
- 6An ambulance.
Dispatch sent a bus to the scene within minutes of the 911 call.
Get him on the bus. He's losing too much blood.
Similarambulance
Note
Emergency-medicine slang, spoken among those who staff and dispatch ambulances: send a bus, get him on the bus. It belongs to talk at the scene and over dispatch, not to formal writing. Outside that circle, listeners can easily hear it as the public vehicle. In ordinary speech or writing, ambulance is the word to use.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Bus has a medical-slang sense meaning an ambulance. en.wiktionary.org
- 7An airplane.
The crew patched the old bus up and had her flying again by morning.
Years after the war, the old flier still missed climbing into the cockpit of his trusty bus each morning.
Similarplane, airplane, aircraft
Note
Military slang from roughly the 1910s to the 1940s. Fliers spoke of their aircraft the way a driver might speak of a worn but trusted vehicle: patching up the old bus, getting her flying again. Today it reads as period color. It suits historical fiction or an evocation of that era, but as a plain word for an airplane it would puzzle most listeners.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Bus meaning an airplane was military slang from roughly the 1910s to the 1940s, though chiefly associated with World War I. history.cass.anu.edu.au
- Fliers used 'old bus' affectionately for aircraft, including damaged machines they hoped to repair and fly again. gutenberg.org
- 8The core structure of a satellite or spacecraft, supporting its payload and containing the systems for power, propulsion, and control.
- 9The part of a MIRV missile, fitted with on-board motors, that delivers warheads to their targets.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
A clipping of 'omnibus', which replaced the earlier form 'bus, where the apostrophe marked the shortening; the spelling likely changed because modern speakers no longer feel it as a clipped word. The electrical sense is a figurative use of the automotive sense.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Bus is a clipping of omnibus. en.wiktionary.org
- Bus superseded the earlier spelling 'bus, whose apostrophe marked the clipping. en.wiktionary.org
- The spelling change likely reflects speakers no longer perceiving bus as a clipping. en.wiktionary.org
- The electrical sense derives from a figurative application of the automotive sense. en.wiktionary.org
A back-formation from 'busboy'.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The restaurant-service verb bus is a back-formation from busboy. en.wiktionary.org