bite

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”).

• enPR: bīt, IPA^(key): /baɪt/
• Rhymes: -aɪt

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophones: bight, by't, byte

bite (third-person singular simple present bites, present participle biting, simple past bit, past participle bitten or (rare) bit)

1. (transitive) To cut into something by clamping the teeth.

   As soon as you bite that sandwich, you'll know how good it is.

2. (transitive) To hold something by clamping one's teeth.
3. (intransitive) To attack with the teeth.

   That dog is about to bite!

4. (intransitive) To behave aggressively; to reject advances.

   If you see me, come and say hello. I don't bite.

5. (intransitive) To take hold; to establish firm contact with.

   I needed snow chains to make the tires bite.

6. (intransitive) To have significant effect, often negative.

   For homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages, rising interest will really bite.

7. (intransitive, of a fish) To bite a baited hook or other lure and thus be caught.

   Are the fish biting today?

8. (intransitive, figurative) 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?

9. (intransitive, transitive, of an insect) To sting.

   These mosquitoes are really biting today!

10. (intransitive) To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which causes such a sensation; to be pungent.

    It bites like pepper or mustard.

11. (transitive, sometimes figurative) To cause sharp pain or damage to; to hurt or injure.

    Pepper bites the mouth.

    • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], page 229, column 1:

      […] froſts doe bite the Meads […]

12. (intransitive) To cause sharp pain; to produce anguish; to hurt or injure; to have the property of so doing.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 23:32, column 1:

      At the laſt it [wine] biteth like a ſerpent, and ſtingeth like ‖ an adder.

13. (intransitive) To take or keep a firm hold.

    The anchor bites.

14. (transitive) To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to.

    The anchor bites the ground.

    • 1859, Charles Dickens, “Fire Rises”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book II (The Golden Thread), page 152:

      […] the last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing to bite […]

15. (intransitive, slang) To lack quality; to be worthy of derision; to suck.

    This music really bites.

16. (transitive, informal, vulgar) To perform oral sex on. Used in invective.

    You don't like that I sat on your car? Bite me.

17. (intransitive, African-American Vernacular, slang) To plagiarize, to imitate.

    He always be biting my moves.

18. (obsolete, transitive, slang) To deceive or defraud; to take in.

• bite down

• Sranan Tongo: beti

bite (countable and uncountable, plural bites)

1. The act of biting.
   • 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:

     […] 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 […]

   • 2016, Mark Z. Danielewski, The Familiar, Volume 3: Honeysuckle & Pain, Pantheon Books, →ISBN, page 513:

     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.

2. The wound left behind after having been bitten.

   That snake bite really hurts!

3. The swelling of one's skin caused by an insect's mouthparts or sting.

   Synonym: sting

   After just one night in the jungle I was covered with mosquito bites.

4. 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.

   • 1906, Hamilton Drummond, The Chain of Seven Lives, F. V. White & Co., Ltd., pages 182–183:

     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.

5. (slang) Something unpleasant.
   • 1985 December 7, Sib Connor, “9to5: Still Putting In A Day's Work”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 21, page 2:

     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.

6. (slang) An act of plagiarism.

   That song is a bite of my song!

7. A small meal or snack.

   a bite to eat... I'll have a quick bite to quiet my stomach until dinner...

   • 2023 July 21, Billie Schwab Dunn, “I Tried Wetherspoons Food for the First Time-I Feared I'd Get Scurvy...”, in Daily Star:

     Would I take someone here for a first date? No. Would I go here for a cheap bite? Also no...

8. (figuratively, uncountable) Aggression.
   • 1996 April 22, Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times:

     Kathy Santen is full of bite as the bizarrely seduced Lady Anne, although her exaggerated diction is a bit too snappishly Shakespearean.

   • 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:

     In Tarabai’s text this exposure is direct, unusually blunt, full of bite and ridicule, and highly polemical.

   • 2011 March 2, Saj Chowdhury, “Man City 3 - 0 Aston Villa”, in BBC‎:

     City scored the goals but periods of ball possession were shared - the difference being Villa lacked bite in the opposition final third.

9. 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.
10. (colloquial, dated) A cheat; a trick; a fraud.
    • 1725, Thomas Gordon, The Humorist:

      The baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite, by deceiving and overreaching.

11. (colloquial, dated, slang) A sharper; one who cheats.
    • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, “Pickle Seems Tolerably Well Reconciled to His Cage; […] ”, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC, page 385, column 1:

      [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.

    • 1828, The Newcastle Magazine, volume 7, page 85:

      So he went home cursing the Yorkshire bites, and swearing there was no living among them […]

12. (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.
13. (slang) A cut, a proportion of profits; an amount of money.
    • 1993, William S. Burroughs, edited by Oliver Harris, The Letters of William S. Burroughs, 1945–1959, New York: Penguin, →ISBN, page 92:

      I know three Americans who are running a bar. The cops come in all the time for a bite.

14. (television) Ellipsis of sound bite.
    • 2015, Robert A. Papper, Broadcast News and Writing Stylebook:

      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.

• beetle
• bit

• Sranan Tongo: beti

• EBIT, Ebit, ebit, tebi-

• IPA^(key): [ˈbɪtɛ]
• Homophone: byte

bite

1. vocative singular of bit

• bitte

From Old Norse biti (“beam, girder”), from Proto-Germanic *bitô, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”).

• IPA^(key): /bit/

• Audio

  (file)

bite f (plural bites)

1. (slang, vulgar) knob, cock, dick

   Il a souri quand j’ai mis la main entre ses cuisses et je me suis mise à frotter sa grosse bite.

   He smiled when I put my hand between his thighs and started to rub his big cock.

   • 2006, “Je veux te voir”, in Pop Up, performed by Yelle:

     Je veux te voir / Dans un film pornographique / En action avec ta bite / Forme potatoes ou bien frites

     I want to see you / In a porno film / In action with your dick / Whether it's a French fry or a chunky chip

   • 2012, “Wesh Morray”, in Futur, performed by Booba:

     J’sors ma bite je la baise, tu sors ton biff tu la sors

     I get out my dick and I fuck her, you get out your cash and take her out

   • 2015 [2004], Stéphane Dompierre, Un petit pas pour l'homme, →ISBN, page 57:

     J’ai la bite tellement raide que si son copain passe, il pourra me l’arracher et me péter les dents avec. Je vis dans un film érotique et je ne baise pas. Je n’y comprends rien.

     My cock is so hard that if her boyfriend comes by, he'll be able to rip it off and smash my teeth in with it. I live in a porn film and I'm not getting laid. I don't understand it.

• “bite”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

bite

1. fruit

Unadapted borrowing from English bite.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbajt/
• Rhymes: -ajt

bite m (invariable)

1. (dentistry) split (dental device)

• IPA^(key): /bi˩.te˧/

bite

1. hot

• bi-üngte

• K. E. Herr (2011) The phonological interpretation of minor syllables, applied to Lemi Chin‎, Payap University, page 74

From Proto-Balto-Slavic *bitē (compare Lithuanian bitė), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰey-, *bʰī-. Cognate to English bee.

bite f (5th declension)

1. bee

bitè

1. instrumental singular of bìtė (“bee”)

bìte

1. instrumental singular of bìtė (“bee”)

Cognates include Minica Huitoto bite and Nüpode Huitoto bitde.

• IPA^(key): [ˈbitɛ]
• Hyphenation: bi‧te

bite

1. (intransitive) to come

• Shirley Burtch (1983) Diccionario Huitoto Murui (Tomo I) (Linguistica Peruana No. 20)‎ (in Spanish), Yarinacocha, Peru: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, page 36
• Katarzyna Izabela Wojtylak (2017) A grammar of Murui (Bue): a Witotoan language of Northwest Amazonia.‎, Townsville: James Cook University press (PhD thesis), page 76

bite

1. plural of bita

bite

1. (Halligen), (Mooring) To bite.

From Old Norse bíta, from Proto-Germanic *bītaną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”).

bite (present tense biter, past tense bet or beit, past participle bitt, present participle bitende)

1. To bite.

• bite i gresset
• bitende (adjective)

• bitt (noun)

• “bite” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

bite (present tense bit, past tense beit, supine bite, past participle biten, present participle bitande, imperative bit)

1. e-infinitive form of bita (in dialects with e-infinitive or split infinitive)

• “bite” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From Proto-West Germanic *biti.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbi.te/

bite m

1. bite

• Middle English: bitte, bite (merged with descendant of Old English bita)
  • Scots: bit
  • English: bit

• IPA^(key): /ˈbi.tɛ/
• Rhymes: -itɛ
• Syllabification: bi‧te

bite

1. inflection of bity:
   1. neuter nominative/accusative/vocative singular
   2. nonvirile nominative/accusative/vocative plural

bite

1. dative singular of bit

From Old Frisian bīta.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbitə/

bite

1. To bite.

• “bite (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011