bite
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: bīt
ipa: /baɪt/
rhymes: -aɪt
homophone: bight
homophone: by't
homophone: byte
Forms: form: bites
Etymology: From Middle English biten, from Old English bītan (“bite”), from Proto-West Germanic *bītan, from Proto-Germanic *bītaną (“bite”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“split”).
Cognates include Saterland Frisian biete (“bite”), West Frisian bite (“bite”), Dutch bijten (“bite”), German Low German bieten (“bite”), German beißen, beissen (“bite”), Danish bide (“bite”), Swedish bita (“bite”), Norwegian Bokmål bite (“bite”), Norwegian Nynorsk bita (“bite”), Icelandic bíta (“bite”), Gothic 𐌱𐌴𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (beitan, “bite”), Latin findō (“split”), Ancient Greek φείδομαι (pheídomai), Sanskrit भिद् (bhid, “break”).
Senses: examples: text: […]I have knowne a very good Fiſher angle diligently four or ſix hours in a day, for three or four dayes together for a River Carp, and not have a bite[…]
ref: 1653, Iz[aak] Wa[lton], chapter VIII, in The Compleat Angler or The Contemplative Man’s Recreation. Being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing, […], London: […] T. Maxey for Rich[ard] Marriot, […], →OCLC; reprinted as The Compleat Angler (Homo Ludens; 6), Nieuwkoop, South Holland, Netherlands: Miland Publishers, 1969, →ISBN, pages 168–169:
text: Now trust me when I tell you, young lady, teeth are something you want to take care of. They’re these rare white things that give us pleasure throughout our life. And give us bite. Our inheritance. Our means of survival. Our right to rule. Their enamel is the front line. And that line needs to be won every day.
ref: 2016, Mark Z. Danielewski, The Familiar, Volume 3: Honeysuckle & Pain, Pantheon Books, →ISBN, page 513:
glosses: The act of biting.
examples: text: That snake bite really hurts!
glosses: The wound left behind after having been bitten.
examples: text: After just one night in the jungle I was covered with mosquito bites.
synonyms: sting
glosses: The swelling of one's skin caused by an insect's mouthparts or sting.
examples: text: There were only a few bites left on the plate.
text: Not a soul in Corlaix will dare give us bite, sup, or shelter; and we shall die starved in a ditch, all four of us—that much we are our own, but in all else we are Monseigneur’s; all else, I say, all—all.
ref: 1906, Hamilton Drummond, The Chain of Seven Lives, F. V. White & Co., Ltd., pages 182–183:
glosses: A piece of food of a size that would be produced by biting; a mouthful.
examples: text: In February of this year, 9to5 was forced to lay off four of its paid staff, and began to feel the bite of its high-rent downtown office space.
ref: 1985 December 7, Sib Connor, “9to5: Still Putting In A Day's Work”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 21, page 2:
glosses: Something unpleasant.
examples: text: That song is a bite of my song!
glosses: An act of plagiarism.
examples: text: a bite to eat
text: I'll have a quick bite to quiet my stomach until dinner.
text: Wilma, I promise you one thing. Whatever scum is behind this, not a single cop on this police force will have a minute's rest until he's behind bars. Now let's grab a bite to eat.
ref: 1988, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, spoken by Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen):
text: Would I take someone here for a first date? No. Would I go here for a cheap bite? Also no...
ref: 2023 July 21, Billie Schwab Dunn, “I Tried Wetherspoons Food for the First Time-I Feared I'd Get Scurvy...”, in Daily Star:
glosses: A small meal or snack.
glosses: incisiveness, provocativeness, exactness.
examples: text: Kathy Santen is full of bite as the bizarrely seduced Lady Anne, although her exaggerated diction is a bit too snappishly Shakespearean.
ref: 1996 April 22, Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times:
text: In Tarabai’s text this exposure is direct, unusually blunt, full of bite and ridicule, and highly polemical.
ref: 1998, Vidyut Bhagwat, “Pandita Ramabai’s Strī-Dharma Nīti and Tarabai Shinde’s Strī-Puruṣ Tulanā: The Inner Unity of the Texts”, in Anne Feldhaus, editor, Images of Women in Maharashtrian Society, State University of New York Press, →ISBN, page 211:
text: City scored the goals but periods of ball possession were shared - the difference being Villa lacked bite in the opposition final third.
ref: 2011 March 2, Saj Chowdhury, “Man City 3 - 0 Aston Villa”, in BBC:
glosses: Aggression.
glosses: The hold which the short end of a lever has upon the thing to be lifted, or the hold which one part of a machine has upon another.
examples: text: The baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite, by deceiving and overreaching.
ref: 1725, Thomas Gordon, The Humorist:
glosses: A cheat; a trick; a fraud.
examples: text: [I]t was conjectured, that Peregrine was a bite from the beginning, who had found credit on account of his effrontery and appearance, and impoſed himſelf upon the town as a young gentleman of fortune.
ref: 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, “Pickle Seems Tolerably Well Reconciled to His Cage; […] ”, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume IV, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC, page 173:
text: So he went home cursing the Yorkshire bites, and swearing there was no living among them […]
ref: 1828, The Newcastle Magazine, volume 7, page 85:
glosses: A sharper; one who cheats.
topics: media
printing
publishing
glosses: A blank on the edge or corner of a page, owing to a portion of the frisket, or something else, intervening between the type and paper.
examples: text: I know three Americans who are running a bar. The cops come in all the time for a bite.
ref: 1993, William S. Burroughs, edited by Oliver Harris, The Letters of William S. Burroughs, 1945–1959, New York: Penguin, →ISBN, page 92:
glosses: A cut, a proportion of profits; an amount of money.
examples: text: cold open: Starting a TV newscast with video or a bite from the lead story rather than starting with the anchor or the standard show open.
ref: 2015, Robert A. Papper, Broadcast News and Writing Stylebook:
topics: broadcasting
media
television
glosses: Ellipsis of sound bite.
topics: ball-games
cricket
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: The turn that a spin bowler imparts to a pitch.
Derived terms: sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: afterbite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: all bark and no bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: all bark but no bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: all bark no bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bee bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite at the apple
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite at the cherry
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite cell
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: biteforce
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: biteful
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite indicator
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: biteless
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bitemark
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite of the apple
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite of the cherry
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite of the reality sandwich
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite point
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: biteproof
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite-size
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite-sized
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bitesome
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite stick
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite suit
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite to eat
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bitewing
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bite wing
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: bitey
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: claiming bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: cow bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: crossbite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: dry bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: eat an elephant one bite at a time
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: fight bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: first bite free
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: fleabite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: forebite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: Frankenbite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: frostbite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: gristbite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: have a bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: in one bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: love bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: mating bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: midbite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: minibite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: monkey bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: mosquito bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: one's bark is worse than one's bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: open bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: overbite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: pizza bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: put the bite on
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: rat-bite fever
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: scissor bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: scissors bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: scope bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: shark-bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: shark bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: shoebite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: sight bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: snake-bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: snakebite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: sound bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: stork bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: take a bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: take a bite out of
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: tax bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: tick bite
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: tick-bite fever
sense: Terms derived from bite (noun senses)
word: underbite
Related terms: beetle
bit