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.
Meanings
(archaic) A kiss.
Here he gave Jones a hearty buss, shook him by the hand, and took his leave. 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter XIII, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VII:
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.
Meanings
(dialectal, often, poetic, transitive) To kiss (either literally or figuratively).
As the repatriated explorer dodges down to buss the earth […] he is so thoroughly caught up in the rhapsody of the moment that he fails to take into account the traffic behind him. 1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 189:
I will thinke thou smil'st, And busse thee as thy wife. c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:
Sam...really was six-ten and his head bussed the ceiling. 2007, Winter 61, Fiddlehead:
'I take the privilege, Mistress Ruth, of saluting you.' ...And therewith I bussed her well. 1869, Richard Blackmore, Lorna Doone, page 1:
(intransitive) To kiss.
In the faint glow of a single blue bulb hanging from a clothesline they bussed and fondled. 2007, James Isaiah Gabbe, LaRue's Maneuvers, Chapter 10, LaRue, The Blue Light, p259-60
A herring buss, a type of shallow-keeled Dutch fishing boat used especially for herring fishing.
the Dutch whalers and herring busses 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XIX, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
1838, Charles Dickens, "Omnibuses", Sketches by Boz
We will back the machine in which we make our daily peregrination from the top of Oxford-street to the city, against any buss on the road, whether it be for the gaudiness of its exterior, the perfect simplicity of its interior, or the native coolness of its cad.
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. 1885, F. Claudius Armstrong, The Warhawk (page 39)