Word.ws English Dictionary

park the bus

park the bus verb: to attempt to stop the opposition team from scoring a goal by playing extremely defensively and placing as many players as possible behind the ball.

Verb

park the bus (third-person singular simple present parks the bus, present participle parking the bus, simple past and past participle parked the bus)

  1. (idiomatic) To attempt to stop the opposition team from scoring a goal by playing extremely defensively and placing as many players as possible behind the ball.
    • England goalkeeper Gordon Banks resisted everything Liverpool threw at him that day, as City parked the bus and banked on snatching the vital single goal and then holding on.2011, John Williams, Red Men: Liverpool Football Club – The Biography
    • Dan is Head Groundsman at Swansea, who in 2011/12 won plaudits For their positive, passing game - showing that you don't need to park the bus as a promoted side to retain top-flight status.2012, The League Doesn't Lie: The 606 Book of Football Lists, page 311
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see park, bus.

Forms of park the bus

third-person singular presentparks the bus
present participleparking the bus
past participleparked the bus
pastparked the bus

Origin of park the bus

Coined by Portuguese association football manager and former player José Mourinho.

Questions about park the bus

What does park the bus mean?
Park the bus means to attempt to stop the opposition team from scoring a goal by playing extremely defensively and placing as many players as possible behind the ball.
What part of speech is park the bus?
Park the bus is a verb.
What is the past tense of park the bus?
The past tense of park the bus is parked the bus.

Words near park the bus in the dictionary

  1. Park Slope
  2. Park Street
  3. park strip
  4. park that thought
  5. park the beef bus in tuna town
  6. park the bus
  7. park up
  8. park-and-ride
  9. park-goer
  10. park-goers
  11. park-keeper

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: park the bus (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-park the bus.ogg.

Cite this entry: “park the bus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/park_the_bus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.