bus vs van

bus

noun
  • A motor vehicle for transporting large numbers of people along roads. 

  • An electrical conductor or interface serving as a common connection for two or more circuits or components. 

  • An ambulance. 

  • Part of a MIRV missile, having on-board motors used to deliver the warhead to a target. 

verb
  • To travel by bus. 

  • To transport students to school, often to a more distant school for the purposes of achieving racial integration. 

  • To clear meal remains from. 

  • To transport via a motor bus. 

  • To work at clearing the remains of meals from tables or counters; to work as a busboy. 

van

noun
  • A covered motor vehicle used to carry goods or (normally less than ten) persons, usually roughly cuboid in shape, longer and higher than a car but relatively smaller than a truck/lorry or a bus. 

  • A large towable vehicle equipped for the repair of structures that cannot easily be moved. 

  • A shovel used in cleansing ore. 

  • A fan or other contrivance, such as a sieve, for winnowing grain. 

  • A wing with which the air is beaten. 

  • An enclosed railway vehicle for transport of goods, such as a boxcar/box van. 

verb
  • To wash or cleanse, as a small portion of ore, on a shovel. 

  • To transport in a van or similar vehicle (especially of horses). 

  • Of law enforcement: to arrest (not necessarily in a van; derived from party van). 

How often have the words bus and van occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )