omnibus

A horse-drawn omnibus (sense 1) in London, UK, in 1902

Shillibeer's first omnibus of 1829

From French omnibus, from Latin omnibus (“to/for all”), dative plural of omnis (“all”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃ep-ni- (“working”), from *h₃ep- (“to work; to possess”) or *h₁op- (“to work; to take”).

• (Received Pronunciation, General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈɒmnɪbəs/

• Audio (RP)

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• Audio (AU)

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɑmnɪbəs/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: om‧ni‧bus
• Rhymes: -ɪbəs

omnibus (plural omnibuses or omnibusses or (nonstandard) omnibi)

1. (dated) A bus (vehicle for transporting large numbers of people along roads).
   • 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:

     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.

   • 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 16:

     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.

   • 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:

     "Please," his voice quavered through the foul brown air, "Please, is that an omnibus?" / "Omnibus est," said the driver, without turning round.

   • 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:

     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.

   • 1944 July and August, Reginald B. Fellows, “The Failure of Bricklayers Arms as a Passenger Station—I”, in Railway Magazine, page 212:

     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.

   • [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:

     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'.]

   • 1988 December 23, Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, Blackadder's Christmas Carol, spoken by Ebenezer Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson), London: BBC, →OCLC:

     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.

2. An anthology of previously released material linked together by theme or author, especially in book form.
   • 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:

     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.

3. A broadcast programme consisting of all of the episodes of a serial that have been shown in the previous week.

   The omnibus edition of The Archers is broadcast every Sunday morning at 11.00.

   • 2014, Kim Newman, “Introduction”, in Quatermass and the Pit, London: Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of the British Film Institute, →ISBN, page 7:

     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.

4. (philately) A stamp issue, usually commemorative, that appears simultaneously in several countries as a joint issue.
   • 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:

     [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.

omnibus (not comparable)

1. Containing multiple items.

   The legislature enacted an omnibus appropriations bill.

   • 1996 June 3, Sabra Chartrand, “Patents; Some independent inventors cry foul about an omnibus bill to reshape the patent system”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     The inventors face a similar uphill battle in their fight against the omnibus bill.

   • 2009 December 10, Mr. McGovern, “Providing for Consideration of Conference Report on H[ouse] R[esolution] 3288, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010”, in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 111th Congress, First Session, volume 155, part 23, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 31014, column 3:

     […] I guess it's good theatrics to hold up all the pages of the appropriations bills that are gathered there, but I should point out to my colleague that the Republican omnibus appropriations acts were longer in length than the one he has there. So what? I mean, has this debate become so shallow that it's all about the number of pages of the bill?

   • 2015, Linda H. Peterson, “Introduction: Victorian Women’s Writing and Modern Literary Criticism”, in Linda H. Peterson, editor, The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women’s Writing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 1:

     In 1852, G[eorge] H[enry] Lewes published an omnibus review of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton, George Sand's oeuvre, and the work of other nineteenth-century "lady novelists" in the Westminster Review.

2. Of a transportation service, calling at every station, as opposed to express; local.

omnibus (third-person singular simple present omnibuses or omnibusses, present participle omnibusing or omnibussing, simple past and past participle omnibused or omnibussed)

1. (transitive) To combine (legislative bills, etc.) into a single package.
   • 1927, Denis Tilden Lynch, chapter XXIII, in “Boss” Tweed: The Story of a Grim Generation, New York, N.Y.: Boni & Liveright, →OCLC; reprinted New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2002, →ISBN, page 283:

     In the tax levy measure were omnibused all appropriations for the maintenance of government for the fiscal year.

2. (intransitive, dated) To drive an omnibus.
   • 1857, A[braham] Oakey Hall, “Trot the Seventh.—A New York Omnibus has a Singular Fare on a Stormy Night, and what Came of It”, in Old Whitey’s Christmas Trot. A Story for the Holidays, New York, N.Y.: Published by Harper & Brothers, Pearl Street, Franklin Square, →OCLC, page 93:

     I'm two shillings short of usual rainy-day fares, and not a passenger is out, I'm certain—least ways can I see him, if there was. It's nice business, omnibusing is—in summer time!

3. (intransitive, dated) To travel or be transported by omnibus.
   • 1842 February 12, “Observator” [pseudonym], “Liverpool and Manchester and Manchester and Leeds Railways [letter]”, in Supplement to The Railway Times, volume V, number 7, part II (number 215 from the start), London: Printed by John Thomas Norris, 137 and 138, Aldersgate street, in the Parish of St. Botolph Without, Aldersgate, in the City of London, and published by him at the Railway Times Office, No. 122, Fleet-street, (facing Saint Bride's Church), in the Parish of Saint Bride's, Fleet-street, Middlesex, →OCLC, page 178:

     [W]hat would not be the effect on the goods, and even on the passenger traffic, of the Grand Junction and London and Birmingham lines, if two miles of the rails were to-morrow taken up through the town of Birmingham, so that the first (good) had all to be carted, and the second (passengers) had all to be omnibused, over the breach! Yet, such is the present state of the communication at Manchester!

   • 1848 June 15, N[athaniel] Parker Willis, “[Letters from Watering-places.] Letter I.”, in Rural Letters and Other Records of Thought at Leisure, Written in the Intervals of More Hurried Literary Labor, Detroit, Mich.: Kerr, Doughty & Lapham, published 1853, →OCLC, page 309:

     […] Sharon Springs are five hours from Albany, three by railroad, and two by stage-coach. Passengers arrive in time to dress comfortably for dinner. The drive up is not particularly picturesque, but it is through woods and fields, and this, as a change from omnibusing between sidewalks and brick walls, is, at least, refreshing.

   • 1871, W. Justin O'Driscoll, chapter VI, in A Memoir of Daniel Maclise, R.A., London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 68:

     Two days I hired a carriage and showed them all distant places, such as Bois de Boulogne, Longchamps, Champ de Mars, Invalides, and some of the outer boulevards, Gobelins, Père La Chaise, Jardin de Plantes; but generally we omnibussed it, and for a few sous each you can get any distance along and athwart the city.

   • 2005, Simon Schama, in Simon Schama; Paul Moorhouse; Colin Wiggins, John Virtue: London Paintings, London: National Gallery Company, →ISBN, page 23:

     [John] Virtue has often sung his ode to pollution; the artist's friend. Whether to embrace or reject the begrimed air, the half-choked light has historically sorted out the men from the boys in London painters. […] Claude Monet was in two minds about it, cursing it from his room in the Savoy in 1899 for blotting out the fugitive sun. Yet by far the strongest of his paintings – completed in a studio a long, long way from the Thames – were the greeny-grey early-morning images of crowds tramping and omnibussing their way to work over hostile bridges, unblessed by even a hint of watery sunshine.

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “omnibus”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• IPA^(key): /ɔm.ni.bys/

• Audio

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omnibus (invariable)

1. (rail transport) local (of a train; making stops at all stations)

   un train omnibus ― a local train

omnibus m (plural omnibus)

1. (dated) omnibus, bus (especially, a 19th-century horse-drawn omnibus)

• “omnibus” in Dictionnaire français en ligne Larousse.
• “omnibus” in Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française, 1872–1877.
• “omnibus”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈom.ni.bus/, [ˈɔmnɪbʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈom.ni.bus/, [ˈɔmnibus]

omnibus

1. dative/ablative masculine/feminine/neuter plural of omnis
   • 29 bc. Vergil. Georgics, III

     amor omnibvs idem

     Sex is the same for all of them [viz., every form of man, beast, aquatic or winged life, and livestock]

omnibus n pl

1. dative/ablative of omnia

Learned borrowing from Latin omnibus.

• IPA^(key): /ɔmˈɲi.bus/

• Audio

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• Rhymes: -ibus
• Syllabification: om‧ni‧bus

omnibus m inan

1. (dated) omnibus

omnibus m pers

1. (humorous, literary) jack of all trades (a person with knowledge in multiple fields)

• omnibus in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• omnibus in Polish dictionaries at PWN