omnibus

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a bus, especially a large horse-drawn public vehicle of the nineteenth century

   Passengers crowded onto the omnibus bound for the city center.

2. 2
   noun

   a volume or program that collects several works, installments, or related items

   The publisher released an omnibus containing all three novels.

3. 3
   adj

   including or dealing with many different items or matters at once

   Parliament debated an omnibus bill covering transport, housing, and energy.

Simplified etymology

Omnibus came into English in the early 19th century through French voiture omnibus, “vehicle for everybody,” the name for a horse-drawn passenger vehicle introduced in Paris in the 1820s. French borrowed omnibus from a Latin form meaning “for all,” based on omnis, “all.” By the 1830s English had shortened the vehicle name to bus and had also extended omnibus to a volume collecting several separately published works.

Borrowed from French voiture omnibus ('carriage for everyone'), using Latin omnibus, the dative plural of omnis ('all'), literally 'for all.' English shortened omnibus to bus in the nineteenth century; the ideas of carrying or including many things produced the collection and adjective senses.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary