bus

bus — noun

1. a long road vehicle with many seats that picks up and drops off passengers at fi

1.nounA1
Definition

a long road vehicle with many seats that picks up and drops off passengers at fixed stops, usually for a small fare.

Example

Maya catches the number 7 bus to work every weekday morning.

catch + the bus; route number pattern

The school bus stopped near the gate to let the children off.

compound: school bus

Common collocations
  • catch the bus
  • miss the bus
  • the last bus
  • school bus
  • bus stop
  • bus station
  • by bus
Synonyms
  • coach

    British English; usually a long-distance bus with comfortable seats

  • minibus

    smaller bus, often for 8-15 passengers

  • shuttle

    short-route bus between two fixed points, often free

Grammar Patterns

take/catch/get/miss + the bus

by bus

Usage Note

Use 'take', 'catch', or 'get' + the bus for boarding; use 'on the bus' for being inside it, and 'by bus' (no article) when stating the means of travel.

Common Mistakes

I went to school with bus.
I went to school by bus.
means of transport uses 'by + noun' with no article.
I rode in the bus to Taipei.
I rode the bus / I took the bus to Taipei.
for buses, native speakers say 'take/ride the bus', not 'ride in the bus'.

2. a group of connections inside a computer that lets data move between the process

2.nounC1
Definition

a group of connections inside a computer that lets data move between the processor, memory, and other parts.

Example

The motherboard's data bus carries signals between the CPU and the memory chips.

compound: data bus; technical subject

Older computers ran on a 32-bit bus, which limited how much memory the processor could reach.

X-bit bus collocation

Common collocations
  • data bus
  • address bus
  • system bus
  • 32-bit / 64-bit bus
  • across the bus
Synonyms
  • channel

    more general; any pathway for signals

  • interconnect

    broader hardware term covering buses and direct links

Grammar Patterns

data bus

address bus

USB = Universal Serial Bus

Usage Note

Almost always appears in technical writing or compounds like 'data bus', 'address bus', 'USB'. Distinguish from sense 1 by domain context — if computing or hardware is involved, this is the meaning.

Idioms

throw someone under the bus

idiom

to blame or sacrifice another person, often a friend or colleague, in order to protect yourself or get what you want.

When the project failed, the manager threw his junior staff under the bus to save his own job.

Lina felt betrayed after her teammate threw her under the bus during the meeting.

miss the bus

idiom

to lose a good chance because you waited too long or acted too slowly.

Carlos didn't apply for the scholarship in time, and now he's missed the bus.

If you don't buy the tickets today, we'll miss the bus on the early-bird price.

throw somebody under the bus

idiom

To let someone else take the blame or suffer harm in order to protect yourself or get a benefit.

Mia threw her teammate under the bus to avoid getting in trouble.

When the project failed, did the manager throw anyone under the bus?

bus — verb

Word family

  • buses
    nounA1
  • bussing
    nounC1
  • busing
    nounC1
  • busboy
    nounC1
  • busser
    nounC1
  • minibus
    nounB1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four words name road vehicles that carry passengers, but they differ in size, route, and feel. A bus is the everyday word for the large public vehicle that runs on fixed urban or regional routes — what you take to school or to work. A coach (mainly British) is also large, but it's built for long-distance travel: think reclining seats, luggage holds, and trips between cities or to tourist sites. A minibus is much smaller, holding roughly eight to fifteen people, and is common for airport pickups, tour groups, or community transport. A shuttle is defined by its job rather than its size: it runs back and forth between two fixed points (an airport and a hotel, a car park and a stadium), often free of charge. So 'I took the bus to school' is routine, 'we hired a coach to Edinburgh' is a holiday trip, 'a minibus collected the team', and 'the airport shuttle leaves every twenty minutes'.

bus ↗coach ↗minibus ↗shuttle ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • bus stop
  • bus station
  • bus driver
  • bus route
  • bus fare
  • bus ticket
  • school bus
  • tour bus
  • night bus

Phrases

  • catch the bus
  • miss the bus
  • get on/off the bus
  • take the bus
  • wait for the bus

Prepositions

  • by bus
  • on the bus
  • off the bus
  • onto the bus

Etymology

LatinFrenchEnglish

Bus is a shortening of 'omnibus', a word the French borrowed from Latin in the early 1800s. In Latin, 'omnibus' literally means 'for all' (the dative plural of 'omnis', meaning 'all'), and a Paris transport service used the phrase 'voiture omnibus' — 'a carriage for everyone' — for its public horse-drawn coaches in the 1820s. English picked up the full word, then quickly clipped it to 'bus', a friendly one-syllable form that has been the standard ever since. The computing sense (a shared pathway used by many components) reuses the same 'for all' idea: many parts of a computer share one bus.