buss
verb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L331056 on Wikidata ↗noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L44621 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /bʌs/ / /bʊs/
name
Etymology: * Occupational surname for a cooper, from Old French busse (“cask, barrel”). * Cognominal surname for someone rotund, like a barrel. * Toponymic surname for someone living or working near a bush or thicket of bushes, from Middle English bush. * Patronymic surname derived from a hypocoristic form of personal names beginning with Burg, such as Burghardt.
- A surname.
noun
Etymology: Clipping of blunderbuss.
- A blunderbuss.
“By the immortal powers, if you had let Rory put a few slugs into the old buss, he'd have settled the baronet's hash altogether.”
verb
Etymology: Uncertain. First attested in the 1560s. Possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰus- (“lip, to kiss”) via Proto-Germanic *busaną (compare German bussen), but in any case imitative of kissing. Compare Welsh bus (“kiss, lip”) and Irish bus (“lips, mouth”) (both may have influenced English), Persian بوس (bus, “kiss”), Latvian buča (“kiss”), Latin basium (“kiss”). Mainstream proposals like in The Free Dictionary have suggested it is a blend of old English dialect words bass (related to French baiser) and cuss (akin to kissen); perhaps compare puss.
- To kiss (either literally or figuratively).
“I will thinke thou smil'st, And busse thee as thy wife.”
“'I take the privilege, Mistress Ruth, of saluting you.' ...And therewith I bussed her well.”
- To kiss.
“In the faint glow of a single blue bulb hanging from a clothesline they bussed and fondled.”