busful

English

Etymology

bus +‎ -ful

Noun

busful (plural busfuls or busesful)

1. An amount sufficient to fill a bus.
   • 1946 April 7, “Campus Capers”, in The Nashville Tennessean, volume 39, number 326, Nashville, Tenn., page 9-B:

     The trip was made Friday in two bouncing busesful, under the chaperonage and direction of Mr. CYRUS DANIEL.

   • 1953 October 23, “Angry Miners Threaten To ‘Down’ The Government”, in Glamorgan Advertiser, volume 33, number 1760, page 5:

     Among the 50,000 were busesful from Coegnant, Caerau and Cwmdu Collieries in Maesteg and delegates from pits in the Afan and Garw Valleys.

   • 1966, Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, New York: Bantam Books, published 1976, →ISBN, page 89:

     Riding among an exhausted busful of Negroes going on to graveyard shifts all over the city, […]

   • 1982, Libby Purves, Britain at Play‎^[1], Robson Books, →ISBN, page 92:

     We had dissolved, busesful of us, to the beach and the hypermarket, to the Boutique Diana, le Royal Baby, the Hotel Folkestone or the Café l’Hovercraft.

   • 1988, Octavia Street, Words of Love‎^[2], Silhouette Books, →ISBN, page 28:

     Today the bridge was at its best, Annie thought, showing off for the tourists—there were at least ten busesful in sight.

   • 2012, Ronald Vaughan Morris, History and Imagination: Reenactments for Elementary Social Studies, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 1:

     I had a busful of fifth-grade students expecting a field trip.

   • 2013, Serge Quadruppani, The Sudden Disappearance of Worker Bees, Arcade Publishing (2013; original French novel published 2011), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

     Due to the arrival of a busful of Bavarian tourists, the noise in the hotel lobby was deafening.

Related terms

• omnibusful

Translations

amount sufficient to fill a bus

• Finnish: bussillinen, bussilasti