omnibus

Etymology

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”).

noun

1. (dated) A vehicle set up to carry many people (now usually called a bus).
   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. 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
   "Please," his voice quavered through the foul brown air, "Please, is that an omnibus?" / "Omnibus est," said the driver, without turning round. 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
   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. 20 October 1919, 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
   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. 1944 July and August, Reginald B. Fellows, “The Failure of Bricklayers Arms as a Passenger Station—I”, in Railway Magazine, page 212
   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'.] [2 May 1959, 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
   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. 23 December 1988, Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, Blackadder's Christmas Carol, spoken by Ebenezer Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson), London: BBC, →OCLC
2. An anthology of previously released material linked together by theme or author, especially in book form.
   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. 2003, “Summation: 2002”, in Gardner Dozois, editor, The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Griffin, page xxvi
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.
   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. 2014, Kim Newman, “Introduction”, in Quatermass and the Pit, London: Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of the British Film Institute, page 7
4. (philately) A stamp issue, usually commemorative, that appears simultaneously in several countries as a joint issue.
   [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. 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, page 163

adj

1. Containing multiple items.
   The legislature enacted an omnibus appropriations bill.
   The inventors face a similar uphill battle in their fight against the omnibus bill. 1996-06-03, Sabra Chartrand, “Patents; Some independent inventors cry foul about an omnibus bill to reshape the patent system”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
   […] 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? 10 December 2009, 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
   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. 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, page 1
2. Of a transportation service, calling at every station, as opposed to express; local.

verb

1. (transitive) To combine (legislative bills, etc.) into a single package.
   In the tax levy measure were omnibused all appropriations for the maintenance of government for the fiscal year. 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, page 283
2. (intransitive, dated) To drive an omnibus.
   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! 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
3. (intransitive, dated) To travel or be transported by omnibus.
   [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! 12 February 1842, “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
   […] 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. 15 June 1848, 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
   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. 1871, W. Justin O'Driscoll, chapter VI, in A Memoir of Daniel Maclise, R.A., London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 68
   [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. 2005, Simon Schama, in Simon Schama; Paul Moorhouse; Colin Wiggins, John Virtue: London Paintings, London: National Gallery Company, page 23