| 释义 |
omnibus, n. and a.|ˈɒmnɪbəs|
[a. F. omnibus (c 1828, in Dict. Acad. 1835), a. L. omnibus ‘for all’, dative pl. of omnis all, in Fr. phrase voiture omnibus = voiture pour tous, ‘vehicle for all’.]
A. n.
1. a. A four-wheeled public vehicle for carrying passengers, with the inside seats extending along the sides, and the entrance at the rear, and with or without seats on the roof; usually plying along a fixed route. (Colloq. shortened to bus.) ¶ omnibi, representing a spurious ‘plural’ (in quot. 1889 genitive singular) form, occurs occasionally.
1829Shillibeer Mem. to Chairman of Board of Stamps 3 Apr. 5, I am..engaged in building 2 Vehicles after the manner of the recently established French Omnibus, which when completed I purpose starting on the Paddington road. 1829Saunders' Newsletter, The new vehicle, called the omnibus, commenced running this morning [4 July] from Paddington to the City. 1830Hist. in Ann. Reg. 188/1 A barricade was formed across the street by one of those long coaches to which the Parisians have given the name of Omnibus. 1834L. Ritchie Wand. by Seine 179 note, A steam omnibus has also begun to ply regularly on the crowded thoroughfare of the City Road. 1835Marryat Olla Podr. vi. (Rtldg.) 20 Omnibuses, diligences, or cars, which are attached to the..steam-tugs. 1840W. Howitt Visits to Remarkable Places (ser. i.) 200 Trains of omnibuses, or omnibi, are flying down to the Broomielaw every hour. 1862B. Taylor Home & Abr. Ser. ii. viii. 397, I was put down at the station, where omnibuses were in waiting. 1881Grant White Eng. Within & Without iv. 79 The London omnibus, or 'bus as it is universally called..is in form a mere ugly square box on wheels. 1889E. Dowson Let. 23 June (1967) 85, I trust you arrived chez toi—in all sobriety last night & accomplished the de[s]census Av—I should say omnibi with discretion. 1969Times 18 Jan. 20/3 The portmanteau term ‘reprint’ evades definition. It covers series, ‘evergreens’, omnibi, disinterments, defrostings, definitive editions, [etc.].
b. fig.
1831W. Irving in Life & Lett. (1864) II. 455 The great reform omnibus [the Reform Bill] moves but slowly. 1894J. H. Overton Eng. Ch. 19th Cent. 121 His [Arnold's] scheme of making the Church a sort of theological omnibus never took any definite shape.
2. a. = omnibus-box: see B. 2.
1844C. G. F. Gore Quid pro Quo (ed. 3) 81 What if I..swell the ‘Bravos’ of the Omnibus? 1848Thackeray Van. Fair vi, Having just arrived from the omnibus at the opera.
b. Short for omnibus book (see sense B. 3).
The word ‘omnibus’ was also used in the sense ‘omnibus journal’, i.e. a newspaper comprising a variety of items, in two early 19th-century publications, The National Omnibus; and General Advertiser (1831), and The Lancashire Omnibus, a Journal of Literature and Amusement (1832).
1930Writer Jan. 74/2 One of the recent omnibuses contained selected short stories. 1931‘J. Grove’ (title) The omnibus of romance. 1937‘A. Armstrong’ (title) The laughter omnibus. 1976R. Usborne Wodehouse at Work (rev. ed.) iii. 92 The Preface that Wodehouse wrote for the 1974 omnibus World of Psmith. 1978Bookseller 8 Apr. 2196/3 When..Charles Pick..dreamed up those jumbo Heinemann Octopus omnibuses, it seemed..only a matter of time before Collins put some..authors into similar vehicles.
3. Glass-making. (See quot.)
1875Knight Dict. Mech., Omnibus. 1. (Glass-making.) A sheet-iron cover for articles in a leer or annealing-arch, in order to protect them from drafts of air.
4. A man or boy who assists a waiter at an hotel, restaurant, etc.
1888Star 11 Aug. 4/5 To pay to what is known in a restaurant as an ‘omnibus’, i.e. a lad that clears the tables. 1897Daily News 19 June 2/6 Omnibuses..apprentices— who wait on the waiters.
5. attrib. and Comb., as omnibus-cad (cad2 3), omnibus-driver, omnibus-driving adj., omnibus-fashion adv., omnibus-office, omnibus-riding adj., omnibus sleigh, omnibus-ticket, omnibus trade, omnibus traffic, omnibus wheel; omnibus man, the driver or conductor of an omnibus.
1848Thackeray Bk. Snobs xlix, A sceptical audience of *omnibus-cads and nursemaids.
1843Poe Mystery of Marie Roget in Ladies' Compan. (N.Y.) Feb. 166/1 The *omnibus-driver, Valence. 1870‘F. Fern’ Ginger-Snaps 304 This honored name, shouted from lungs that would not have disgraced an omnibus-driver.
1865Dickens Mut. Fr. iv. xvi, *Omnibus-driving expressions.
1857Christian Misc. July 219/2 We know no class of men in this country who undergo a more severe life of toil..than the *omnibus-men and cabmen of London. 1900Daily News 12 Nov. 6/6 For the benefit of the Omnibusmen's Superannuation Fund.
1854M. Cummins Lamplighter xviii. 112 You know the way from the *omnibus-office.
1844Knickerbocker XXIV. 91 His opinions against the *omnibus-riding of so many of our idle citizens.
1860Boston Auditor's Ann. Rep. 1859–60 323 One covered *omnibus sleigh.
1852E. E. Hale If, Yes, & Perhaps (1868) 3 This [sum]..would buy the *omnibus tickets.
1834Tait's Mag. Feb. 41/1 The *omnibus trade became too flourishing to be limited to what are called the ‘metropolis roads’. 1869Engineering 26 Nov. 348/1 With some slight modifications of detail, Mr. Wright's doors might..be advantageously applied to many railway carriages employed in working metropolitan, or as it is often called, ‘*omnibus’ traffic. 1883E. W. Hamilton Diary 15 Dec. (1972) II. 525 Trains worked by electricity admit of any amount of sub⁓division, which is no small consideration as it facilitates omnibus traffic and dispenses with the necessity of constructing the permanent way as strong as it now is. 1884Daily News 19 Sept. 5/2 The railways must unite the facilities of omnibus traffic with their greater speed.
1868Less. Mid. Age 2 The rattle of *omnibus wheels running down to the railway station.
B. adj.
1. Relating to or serving for numerous distinct objects at once; comprising a large number of items or particulars: e.g. an omnibus bill, omnibus clause, omnibus order, omnibus faculty.
1842Congress. Globe 27th Congress 2 Sess. App. 661/1 These two articles..were caught in the omnibus, or dragnet section, which is placed in the rear of the bill. 1850Ibid. 31st Congress 1 Sess. App. 524/1, I am opposed to all omnibus bills, and all amalgamation projects. 1857in Herrig Beiträge XXII. 163 Omnibus-bills, bills which contain laws dissimilar in their character and purposes. 1884Western Daily Press 22 Feb. 5/5 The Corporation Omnibus Bill has been rejected. 1887Pall Mall G. 15 Aug. 2/1 The Revenue Bill which Mr. Goschen introduced..is an omnibus bill of four parts, dealing with Customs, Taxes, Stamps, Excise, and Miscellaneous, in twenty-six clauses. 1889Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 16 Feb. 6/4 The instructions moved..to the Conference Committee upon the omnibus Territorial bill. 1889Echo 16 Nov. 2/3 Each man pays an ‘omnibus’ contribution of a shilling a week for benefits. 1891Daily News 1 Oct. 5/6 There is what is called an ‘omnibus resolution’ embracing a whole programme of reforms. 1900Durham Dioces. Gaz. Feb. 10 Omnibus Faculty for 1899 for the following works. 1968Globe & Mail (Toronto) 3 Feb. 40/2 All organizations said, however, that changes in existing regulations are necessary and many of the Criminal Code amendments contained in an omnibus bill presented by Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau are good ones. 1972N.Y. Law Jrnl. 10 Oct. 18/9 Defendant's omnibus motion is disposed of as hereinafter indicated. 1974Times 30 Aug. 15/2 The plan..is to work up some omnibus convention which most will sign.
2. spec.
a. omnibus box, a name given to large boxes on the pit tier in some theatres and opera-houses, appropriated to a number of subscribers.
b. omnibus train [after F. train omnibus (Hatz.)], a railway train stopping at all the stations on the route.
c. In electrical works, applied to a bar, wire, etc. through which passes the whole of the current proceeding from the source.
1853H. D. Wolff Pict. Span. Life 50 Some..are hired for the season by families, while others are omnibus boxes, or let off in ephemeral places. 1864B. Lumley Reminisc. Opera 15 [The great ‘Tamburini Row’ at opening of Opera season 1841]. The famous omnibus boxes were filled, towards the conclusion of the opera, with the fashionable allies of the coalition. Ibid. 16 The whole party of the noble and fashionable occupants of the omnibus boxes leaped on the stage...The gallant chevaliers of the ‘omnibus’ waved their hats triumphantly and shouted ‘Victory!’ 1882W. Ballantine Exper. I. 295 He was in the omnibus box at the opera. 1893Marg. Symonds Doge's Farm 164 We..were advised..to travel to Padua by the ordinary omnibus train, and let the specials go by. 1894Times 17 Jan. 7/5 A duster was found lying on the terminal..which was connected with the omnibus bar, and the deceased had, it was stated, left the omnibus plug on when it ought to have been off. 1902Chambers's Jrnl. Dec. 823/2 On this level, where it touched the stage, we had an ‘omnibus box’, exactly after the pattern of the proverbial one at Her Majesty's, and occupied usually by the same distinguished noblemen. 1922A. Haddon Green Room Gossip iv. 95 The passing of the green room reminds me of another effete institution of the English theatre—the omnibus box.
3. omnibus book, volume, etc., a book or volume having a large and occas. varied content, spec. one containing several reprinted works by a single author or works of the same kind and published at a price designed to place it within the reach of a wide public; omnibus letter, a letter intended for more than one recipient; omnibus-sized a., of the size of an omnibus book; omnibus ticket, one admitting a number of persons.
1929Daily Tel. 1 Jan. 6/2 It is a day of what the publishers call ‘omnibus books’, meaning works which carry many and varied passengers. 1933Mind XLII. 525 Hume's omnibus letter addressed to Dr. Hugh Blair, and through Blair to Dr. Jardine.
1931Times Lit. Suppl. 19 Nov. 918/1 This second instalment of his short stories, an almost omnibus-sized book.
1868Rep. Iowa Agric. Soc. 1867 408 Some..tender hearted friends would take in their settlement [= family] and then proceed to some hole..in the fence and hand his ‘omnibus ticket’ to some other parent. 1928Times Lit. Suppl. 12 July 514/4 The ‘omnibus’ volume of ‘Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror’,..runs to some 1,250 pages. 1928Observer 22 July 8 The four novels together make one of the most desirable of ‘omnibus’ volumes. 1928Publishers' Circular 14 July 39/2 (heading) The Omnibus Wells.
Hence ˈomnibus v., (a) to omnibus it, to travel by omnibus; also absol.; (b) to place in an omnibus; (c) to convey by omnibus; (d) to publish an omnibus edition of (an author).
1833W. C. Macready Diary 7 Nov. (1912) I. 76, I omnibused down to Drury Lane. 1836P. Hawker Diary (1893) II. 111, I was obliged to cab it, omnibus it, and run it the whole morning. 1863‘G. Hamilton’ Gala-Days 121 We were quickly omnibused to the relics of Donegana. 1886Tinsley's Mag. Sept. 227 The other day I was omnibused with a bore. 1933Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Jan. 1/2 For the author the possibility of becoming popular enough in his lifetime to be omnibused or to omnibus himself with profit may be looked on as a new prize in the race for fame. |