English · Idiom Candidate

park the bus

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To play very defensively, prioritizing preventing goals over scoring

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Chơi rất phòng ngự, ưu tiên phòng thủ hơn ghi bàn

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: leaving a bus in a parking space

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The underdog team parked the bus against the favorites, holding them to a 0-0 draw

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Equivalents & related

Near equivalent đổ bê tông (verb) to park the bus Tiếng Việt

Common questions

What does “park the bus” mean?

To play very defensively, prioritizing preventing goals over scoring Literally: leaving a bus in a parking space

Is “park the bus” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

What is the closest equivalent?

“đổ bê tông” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.