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Twice: repeat the passage.
Printed over a short passage marked off by a bracket or repeat signs, especially in 19th-century songs, operetta and French scores, to say it is played or sung twice. Beware German scores, where bis means until — bis zum Schluss, until the end.
A compact way to repeat a bar or a phrase of text without repeat signs, but old-fashioned now: repeat signs or written-out bars are clearer. If you use it, bracket exactly what is to be repeated. Off the page, bis is also the French and Italian shout for an encore.
Bis is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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