omnibus
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɒmnɪbəs/
ipa: /ˈɑmnɪbəs/
rhymes: -ɪbəs
Forms: form: omnibuses
form: omnibusses
form: omnibi
Etymology: Borrowed from French (voiture) omnibus (“(carriage) for all”), from Latin omnibus (“for all”), dative plural of omnis (“all”).
Senses: examples: text: In front of the latter [coach-houses for railway carriages] is a handsome building, intended as offices for the clerks of the Company, coach-offices, and apartments for the reception and accommodation of passengers, who will be conveyed thither in omnibusses from Liverpool, and taking their respective places in the travelling carriages, will be let off down the inclined plane of the little Tunnel, to be hooked to the locomotives in the area, on the other side of the hill.
ref: 1830, James Scott Walker, “The Small Tunnel”, in An Accurate Description of the Liverpool and Manchester Rail-way, the Tunnel, the Bridges, and Other Works throughout the Line; an Account of the Opening of the Rail-way, and the Melancholy Incident which Occurred; a Short Memoir of the Late Right Hon. W[illia]m Huskisson, and Particulars of the Funeral Procession, &c. With a Map of the Line, and a View of the Bridge over Water Street, Manchester, 2nd edition, Liverpool: Printed & published by J. F. Cannell, 81, Lord-Street, →OCLC, page 20:
text: Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.
ref: 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 16:
text: "Please," his voice quavered through the foul brown air, "Please, is that an omnibus?" / "Omnibus est," said the driver, without turning round.
ref: 1911, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, “The Celestial Omnibus. [Chapter II.]”, in The Celestial Omnibus: And Other Stories, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, →OCLC; republished London: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd. Adam Street, Adelphi, W.C., 1912, →OCLC, page 61:
text: When he came back to his work after lunch he carried in his head a picture of the Strand, scatted with omnibuses, and of the purple shapes of leaves pressed flat upon the gravel, as if his eyes had always been bent upon the ground.
ref: 1919 October 20, Virginia Woolf, chapter XIII, in Night and Day, London: Duckworth and Company, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1920, →OCLC, page 160:
text: Omnibuses were advertised to run in connection with the trains to and from points in the City and West End; fare to the former 3d., to the latter 6d. from Bricklayers Arms.
ref: 1944 July and August, Reginald B. Fellows, “The Failure of Bricklayers Arms as a Passenger Station—I”, in Railway Magazine, page 212:
text: Omnibus, my friend Mr. [Donald] Swann informs me, comes from the Latin omnibus, meaning to or for by with or from everybody, which is a very good description. Well, this song is about a bus, it's wittily subtitled—I thought of this—'A Transport of Delight'.
ref: [1959 May 2, Michael Flanders, “A Transport of Delight”, in At the Drop of a Hat, [New York, N.Y.?]: Parlophone, →OCLC, PCSO 3001, audio recording of a musical revue:
text: Baldrick, I want you to take this [money] and go out, and buy a turkey so large you'd think its mother had been rogered by an omnibus.
ref: 1988 December 23, Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, Blackadder's Christmas Carol, spoken by Ebenezer Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson), London: BBC, →OCLC:
glosses: A bus (vehicle for transporting large numbers of people along roads).
examples: text: Orb published an omnibus by Hal Clement, Heavy Planet, containing his novels Mission of Gravity and Star Light, plus other related material, and an omnibus of three of James White's "Sector General" novels, Alien Emergencies, as well as a reissue of A[lfred] E[lton] [v]an Vogt's The World of Null-A.
ref: 2003, “Summation: 2002”, in Gardner Dozois, editor, The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Griffin, →ISBN, page xxvi:
glosses: An anthology of previously released material linked together by theme or author, especially in book form.
examples: text: The omnibus edition of The Archers is broadcast every Sunday morning at 11.00.
text: In late 1959, well before he was required to adapt his six-part Quatermass and the Pit teleplay into a ninety-seven-minute film script, [Nigel] Kneale supervised the editing of the BBC version into two feature-length episodes for a repeat broadcast. In 1989, he had another go at it, trimming the 207-minute serial into a 178-minute omnibus for release on video cassette, mostly losing comic relief.
ref: 2014, Kim Newman, “Introduction”, in Quatermass and the Pit, London: Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of the British Film Institute, →ISBN, page 7:
glosses: A broadcast programme consisting of all of the episodes of a serial that have been shown in the previous week.
examples: text: [M]any of the African nations issuing the World Cup stamps have pandered to international collectors, with some stamps not even sold in the country of issue. These ‘omnibus’ stamps featured topics and individuals with no links to the issuing country. African stamps displaying Disney themes, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson and Sylvester Stallone all belong to this category.
ref: 2013, Agbenyega Adedze, “Visualizing the Game: The Iconography of Football on African Postage Stamps”, in Susann Baller, Giorgio Miescher, Ciraj Rassool, editors, Global Perspectives on Football in Africa: Visualising the Game (Sport in the Global Society: Contemporary Perspectives), Abingdon, Oxon.; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 163:
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
philately
glosses: A stamp issue, usually commemorative, that appears simultaneously in several countries as a joint issue.
examples: text: “Then you divide your army amongst the various houses where restorations are ordered for Jubilee day?” / “Certainly—say one waiter to ten guests—if it was a dinner we should send one waiter to six guests—with runners, of course.” / “Runners?” / “Omnibuses you call them here—young ones—apprentices—who wait on the waiters.” / “Run everywhere, do anything?” / “Omnibuses.” / What a number of omnibuses will be running at that big mansion of Sir Julian Goldsmid’s on Tuesday. M. [Venant] Benoist has undertaken to restore—restore! what an admirable word—a thousand famishing ladies and gentlemen on that day.
ref: 1897 June 19, “The Jubilee Waiters. Some Words with the Maître d’Hôtel.”, in The Daily News, number 15,984, London, →OCLC, page 2, column 6:
text: A waiter is paid $25 a month. He must pay his omnibus himself. The hotel does not pay the omnibuses. By this arrangement it comes about in some hotels that a waiter pays his omnibus more than he himself receives from wages.
ref: 1912 June 1, Mary Alden Hopkins, “International Hotel Workers’ Strike”, in Collier’s: The National Weekly, volume XLIX, number 11, New York, N.Y.: P. F. Collier & Son, Incorporated, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 27, column 1:
text: Little omnibuses in white suits moved about, gathering up papers or napkins dropped by careless diners; bigger omnibuses in dinner jackets exported trays of dishes which the lordly artists of the serving force were above touching.
ref: 1913 May, Henry Sydnor Harrison, “How It Is One Thing to Run Away from Yourself, and Another to Escape; […]”, in V. V.’s Eyes, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, →OCLC, page 258:
synonyms: busboy
busser
glosses: An assistant waiter.
glosses: an omnibus box
Derived terms: bus
busboy
man on the Clapham omnibus
omnibus box
omnibusful
omnibusman
omnibus progression
omnibus pudding