What it means
To miss the bus means you were too late and the chance is gone. You had a window, moved slow, stalled, or kept thinking you'd do it tomorrow, then it rolled off without you. People use it for real buses, but also for jobs, deals, trends, houses, and any moment that doesn't hang about.
Usage examples
"He sat on the offer for weeks and missed the bus, the house sold to someone who moved fast."
"My cousin missed the bus on the new tech job in Bristol, sat on the offer for two weeks comparing salaries, called back on a Tuesday to accept, and the recruiter politely told her the role had been filled the previous Friday by a candidate ready to start the next Monday."
"We missed the bus on the housing market in Leeds, my partner wanted to wait until spring, by January the prices had jumped twelve percent, and the flat we had viewed in November was already sold to a buyer with cash from a private pension on the table."
"Bro had the investor ready to sign, kept saying he'd reply tomorrow, then missed the bus and the money went somewhere else."
"I nearly moved on that flat in Toronto, took one sleepy little day too long, and yep, missed the bus."
Where it comes from
Late-twentieth-century variant of the older miss the boat, born when buses began replacing trains and ferries as the dominant urban transport in British and American English. The expression carries the same image of opportunity gone with a vehicle that does not wait, and serves equally well for the literal commute and the figurative job offer that closed five minutes early on Friday.
Other ways to say it
Editors of this term
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