Bite
Pronunciation
Origin
From Middle English biten, from Old English bÄ«tan, from Proto-Germanic *bÄ«tanÄ…, from Proto-Indo-European *bÊ°eyd- ("to split"). Cognates include West Frisian bite, Low German bieten, Dutch bijten, Swedish bita, German beißen, Danish bide, Gothic ðŒ±ðŒ´ðŒ¹ð„ðŒ°ðŒ½, and through Indo-European, Ancient Greek φείδομαι, Sanskrit à¤à¤¿à¤¦à¥ (bhid, "to break"), Latin findo ("split").
Full definition of bite
Verb
- (transitive) To cut off a piece by clamping the teeth.As soon as you bite that sandwich, you'll know how good it is.
- (transitive) To hold something by clamping one's teeth.
- (intransitive) To attack with the teeth.That dog is about to bite!
- (intransitive) To behave aggressively; to reject advances.If you see me, come and say hello. I don't bite.
- (intransitive) To take hold; to establish firm contact with.I needed snow chains to make the tires bite.
- (intransitive) To have significant effect, often negative.For homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages, rising interest will really bite.
- (intransitive, of a fish) To bite a baited hook or other lure and thus be caught.Are the fish biting today?
- (intransitive, metaphor) To accept something offered, often secretly or deceptively, to cause some action by the acceptor.I've planted the story. Do you think they'll bite?
- (intransitive, transitive, of an insect) To sting.These mosquitoes are really biting today!
- (intransitive) To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which causes such a sensation; to be pungent.It bites like pepper or mustard.
- (transitive) To cause sharp pain, or smarting, to; to hurt or injure, in a literal or a figurative sense.Pepper bites the mouth.
- ShakespeareFrosts do bite the meads.
- (intransitive) To cause sharp pain; to produce anguish; to hurt or injure; to have the property of so doing.
- Bible, Proverbs xxiii. 32At the last it wine biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
- (intransitive) To take or keep a firm hold.The anchor bites.
- (transitive) To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to.The anchor bites the ground.
- Charles DickensThe last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, ... it turned and turned with nothing to bite.
- (intransitive, slang) To lack quality; to be worthy of derision; to suck.This music really bites.
- (transitive, informal, vulgar) To perform oral sex on. Used in invective.You don't like that I sat on your car? Bite me.
- (intransitive, AAVE, slang) To plagiarize, to imitate.He always be biting my moves.
Derived terms
Noun
bite
(plural bites)- The act of biting.
- WaltonI have known a very good fisher angle diligently four or six hours for a river carp, and not have a bite.
- The wound left behind after having been bitten.That snake bite really hurts!
- The swelling of one's skin caused by an insect's mouthparts or sting.After just one night in the jungle I was covered with mosquito bites.
- A piece of food of a size that would be produced by biting; a mouthful.There were only a few bites left on the plate.
- (slang) Something unpleasant.That's really a bite!
- (slang) An act of plagiarism.That song is a bite of my song!
- A small meal or snack.I'll have a quick bite to quiet my stomach until dinner.
- (figuratively) aggression
- 2011, March 2, Saj Chowdhury, Man City 3 - 0 Aston Villa, City scored the goals but periods of ball possession were shared - the difference being Villa lacked bite in the opposition final third.
- 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.
- (colloquial, dated) A cheat; a trick; a fraud.
- HumoristThe baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite, by deceiving and overreaching.
- (colloquial, dated, slang) A sharper; one who cheats.
- (printing) 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.