Forms: 4–7 busse, 5 busch, 6 busche, 7 buce, buscie, (brisse, burse), bushe, 8 buche, bush, 7– buss. [A word found in many European langs.: OF. busse, OSp. buce, buzo, Pr. bus, med.L. (12th c.) bucia, bussa; also OHG. (rare) buzo, MHG. buze, ON. buza, OE. butse(-carlas) in OE. Chron. A.D. 1066, Du. buis, whence app. mod.G. büse, F. buse, and sense 2 below. In sense 1 the word probably came into English from OF. The remoter etymology is unknown; the OF. busse cask, is usually assumed to be identical.]
† 1. A vessel of burden; perh. similar in build and rig to 2. Obs. exc. Hist., or as in 2.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron., 153. Busses þritti Charged with vitaile, with gode men & douhti. Ibid., 169. Þei sauh fer in þe se A grete busse & gay.
1538. Aberd. Regist., V. 16 (Jam.). Ane busche quhilk was takin be the Franchemen.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. vii. 25. Thirteene Buces or Buscies, which had each of them three course of Sailes.
1865. Cornh. Mag., XII. 375. Richard’s fleet … with its heavy busses and dromons for carrying horses and provisions.
2. spec. A two- or three-masted vessel of various sizes, used esp. in the Dutch herring-fishery; in 1794 identified with a ‘fly-boat.’
1471. Sc. Acts Jas. III. (1597), § 48. That Lordes, Barronnes, and Burrowes gar make Schippes, Busches, and greate Pinck-boates with nettes.
1601. J. Keymer, Dutch Fishing, in Phenix, I. 223. The 2000 Busses from 60 to 100 and 200 Tuns a-piece, are employ’d only to take Herrings about Baughamness in Scotland, [etc.].
1668. Child, Disc. Trade (1698), 56. A Dutchman will be content to employ a stock of 5 or 10000l. in burses.
1706. De Foe, Jure Div., I. 10. Neptune … In Holland’s Buss for Herrings Fish’d.
1749. Wealth Gt. Brit., 37. The vessels that go upon this fishery, are buches, or busses, of the burthen of 70 to 100 tons.
1776. Falconer, Dict. Marine, Buss, a ship of two masts, used by the English and Dutch in their herring fisheries. It is generally from 50 to 70 tons burthen.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, I. 239. Buss, a Dutch fishing-vessel with three short masts, each in one piece. On each is carried a square-sail, and sometimes a topsail above the mainsail. [A plate is given.]
1867. Q. Rev., April, 317. The … fishery has seen year by year the number of its busses decrease.
b. attrib. and in comb. See also BUS-CARL.
1580. in Wadley, Bristol Wills (1886), 226. The busse chest in the Alarie.
1615. Trades Incr., in Harl. Misc. (Malh.), III. 308. Buss-fishing is more easy than any other kind of fishing.
1667. Denham, Direct. Paint., IV. v. 12. Buss-Skippers … stamp to think Their Catching-craft is over.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N. (1869), II. IV. v. 94. Two-thirds of the buss-caught herrings are exported. Ibid., 95. The great encouragement which a bounty … gives to the buss fishery. Ibid. The establishment of the buss bounty.
