A long motor vehicle for carrying passengers, usually along a fixed route.
Informal A large or ungainly automobile.
A four-wheeled cart for carrying dishes in a restaurant.
Electricity A bus bar.
Computer Science A parallel circuit that connects the major components of a computer, allowing the transfer of electric impulses from one connected component to any other.
v.
bused or bussed, bus·ing or bus·sing, bus·es or bus·ses
v.
tr.
To transport in a bus.
To transport (schoolchildren) by bus to schools outside their neighborhoods, especially as a means of achieving racial integration.
To carry or clear (dishes) in a restaurant.
To clear dishes from (a table).
v.
intr.
To travel in a bus.
To work as a busboy.
[Short for omnibus. V., intr., sense 2, back-formation from busboy.]
1832, abbreviation of omnibus (q.v.). The Eng. word is simply a Latin dative plural ending. The verb meaning "transport students to integrate schools" is first recorded 1961. Verb meaning "clear tables in a restaurant" is first attested 1913, probably from the four-wheeled cart used to carry dishes. To miss the bus, in the fig. sense, is from 1915. Busman's holiday "leisure time spent doing what one does for a living" (1893) is probably a reference to London bus drivers riding the buses on their days off.
a vehicle carrying many passengers; used for public transport; "he always rode the bus to work"
2.
the topology of a network whose components are connected by a busbar [syn: bus topology]
3.
an electrical conductor that makes a common connection between several circuits; "the busbar in this computer can transmit data either way between any two components of the system" [syn: busbar]
4.
a car that is old and unreliable; "the fenders had fallen off that old bus"
verb
1.
send or move around by bus; "The children were bussed to school"
busarchitecture One of the sets of conductors (wires, PCB tracks or connections in an integrated circuit) connecting the various functional units in a computer. There are busses both within the CPU and connecting it to external memory and peripheral devices. The data bus, address bus and control signals, despite their names, really constitute a single bus since each is useless without the others. The width of the data bus, i.e. the number of parallel connectors, and its clock rate determine its data rate (the number of bytes per second which it can carry). This is one of the factors limiting a computer's performance. Most current microprocessors have 32-bit busses both internally and externally. 100 or 133 megahertz bus clock rates are common. The bus clock is typically slower than the processor clock. Some processors have internal busses which are wider than their external busses (usually twice the width) since the width of the internal bus affects the speed of all operations and has less effect on the overall system cost than the width of the external bus. Various bus designs have been used in the PC, including ISA, EISA, Micro Channel, VL-bus and PCI. Other peripheral busses are NuBus, TURBOchannel, VMEbus, MULTIBUS and STD bus. Some networks are implemented as a bus at the physical layer, e.g. Ethernet - a one-bit bus operating at 10 (or later 100) megabits per second. The term is almost certainly derived from the electrical engineering term "bus bar" - a substantial, rigid power supply conductor to which several connections are made. This was once written "'bus bar" as it was a contraction of "omnibus bar" - a connection bar "for all", by analogy with the passenger omnibus - a conveyance "for all". More on derivation. (2000-03-20)
Om"ni*bus\, n. [L., for all, dat. pl. from omnis all. Cf. Bus.]1. A long four-wheeled carriage, having seats for many people; especially, one with seats running lengthwise, used in conveying passengers short distances. 2. (Glass Making) A sheet-iron cover for articles in a leer or annealing arch, to protect them from drafts. Omnibus bill, a legislative bill which provides for a number of miscellaneous enactments or appropriations. [Parliamentary Cant, U.S.] Omnibus box, a large box in a theater, on a level with the stage and having communication with it. [Eng.] --Thackeray.
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Audio Help [buhs] Pronunciation Key noun, plural bus·es, bus·ses, verb, bused or bussed, bus·ing or bus·sing. 
