Bit

Pronunciation

• enPR: bÄ­t, IPA: /bɪt/
• Rhymes: -ɪt

From Old English bita and bite - all from Proto-Germanic *bitô, from Proto-Indo-European *bheid- ("to split").

Full definition of bit

Noun

1. (metal in horse's mouth) A piece of metal placed in a horse's mouth and connected to reins to direct the animal.
   Horses hate having bits put in their mouth.
2. A rotary cutting tool fitted to a drill, used to make holes.
3. (US) An eighth of a dollar. Note that there is no coin minted worth 12.5 cents. (When this term first came into use, the Spanish 8 reales coin was widely used as a dollar equivalent, and thus the 1 real coin was equivalent to 12.5 cents.)
   A quarter is two bits.
4. (dated, British) A coin of a specified value. (Also used for a nine-pence coin in the British Caribbean.)
   A threepenny bit.
5. (historical, US) In the southern and southwestern states, a small silver coin (such as the real) formerly current; commonly, one worth about 12½ cents; also, the sum of 12½ cents.
• 1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter 15, ‘No,’ said Luke, grinning at her. ‘You're not dull enough! … What about the kid's clothes? I don't suppose they were anything to write home about, but didn't you keep anything? A bootee or a bit of embroidery or anything at all?’
6. There were bits of paper all over the floor.   Does your leg still hurt?
   Just a bit now.   I have done my bit, I expect you to do yours.
7. A small amount of something.
8. (informal) Specifically, a small amount of time.
   I'll be there in a bit, I need to take care of something first.   He was here just a bit ago, but it looks like he's stepped out.
9. A portion of something.
• 2013, Catherine Clabby, Focus on Everything, Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus....A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that. Developed as a tool to electronically combine the sharpest bits of multiple digital images, focus stacking is a boon to biologists seeking full focus on a micron scale.
10. I'd like a big bit of cake, please.
11. Somewhat; something, but not very great; also used like jot and whit to express the smallest degree.Am I bored? Not a bit of it!
• T. HookMy young companion was a bit of a poet.
12. (slang) A prison sentence, especially a short one.
• 1904, Had it not been for the influence of Mrs. Booth and Hope Hall I should still be grafting or doing a bit in some stir
• 1916, Thomas Mott Osborne. Warden, Sing Sing Prison, N. Y., Prison Reform, Before doing that I am going to tell you what was the result of my own incarceration, because I presume it may not be a secret to you, that I have done a "bit" myself, not the "bit" which the prosecuting attorney was so anxious to have me do.
• 1994, Odie Hawkins, Lost Angeles, Chino didn't make me think of Dachau or that notorious joint in Angola, Louisiana, where a brother who had done a bit there told me how they used to cut the grass on the front lawn with their fingernails.
• 2001, Andrew H. Vachss, Pain management, Not counting the days—that's okay for a county-time slap, but it'll make you crazy if you've got years to go on a felony bit.
13. An excerpt of material making up part of a show, comedy routine, etc.
    His bit about video games was not nearly as entertaining as the other segments of his show.
14. The part of a key which enters the lock and acts upon the bolt and tumblers.
15. The cutting iron of a plane.

Synonyms

• (coin) coin, piece
• (small piece) morsel of food, piece, scrap
• (portion) portion, share, segment
• (horse equipment) snaffle, pelham, kimberwicke

Derived terms

Adverb

1. To a small extent; in a small amount (usually with "a").That's a bit too sweet.

Verb

1. (transitive) To put a bridle upon; to put the bit in the mouth of (a horse).

See bite

Verb

1. bit

   (simple past of bite)
   Your dog bit me!
2. (informal in US, archaic in UK) Past participle of bite, bittenI have been bit by your dog!

Adjective

1. (colloquial) bitten.Even though he's bit, of course the zombies would still chase him.
2. (only in combination) Having been bitten.
• The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, Only the year before, the conjure man had brought in the Jackson County madstone, from way over in Illinois, for a white peddler that had been dog-bit, and the man went ahead and died just the same
• Rainy Season

Coined by John Tukey in 1946 as an abbreviation of binary digit, probably influenced by connotations of “small portion”.http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/98/q2/0602-honorary.htmlhttp://www.thocp.net/timeline/1944.htm#1946 First used in print 1948 by Claude Shannon. Compare byte and nybble.

Noun

1. (mathematics, computing) A binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0.
2. (computing) The smallest unit of storage in a digital computer, consisting of a binary digit.
3. (information theory, cryptography) Any datum that may take on one of exactly two values.status bits on IRC; permission bits in a file system
4. (information theory) A unit of measure for information entropy.
• The researchers found that the original texts spanned a variety of entropy values in different languages, reflecting differences in grammar and structure.
  But strangely, the difference in entropy between the original, ordered text and the randomly scrambled text was constant across languages. This difference is a way to measure the amount of information encoded in word order, Montemurro says. The amount of information lost when they scrambled the text was about 3.5 bits per word.

Synonyms

• (smallest unit of storage) b

Derived terms

Anagrams

• tib, TiB