Bite

Definition of Bite

Pronunciation: bīt

v. t.

[imp. Bit (bĭt); p. p. Bitten (bĭt"t'n), Bit; p. pr. & vb. n. Biting.]

To seize with the teeth, so that they enter or nip the thing seized; to lacerate, crush, or wound with the teeth; as, to bite an apple; to bite a crust; the dog bit a man.

Such smiling rogues as these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain.

- Shak.

To puncture, abrade, or sting with an organ (of some insects) used in taking food.

To cause sharp pain, or smarting, to; to hurt or injure, in a literal or a figurative sense; as, pepper bites the mouth.

To cheat; to trick; to take in.

To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to; as, the anchor bites the ground.

The last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, . . . it turned and turned with nothing to bite.

- Dickens.

To bite the dust
to fall in the agonies of death; as, he made his enemy bite the dust.

To bite in
(Etching) to corrode or eat into metallic plates by means of an acid.

To bite the thumb at
formerly a mark of contempt, designed to provoke a quarrel; to defy.

To bite the tongue
to keep silence. - Shak.

v. i.

To seize something forcibly with the teeth; to wound with the teeth; to have the habit of so doing; as, does the dog bite?

To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which causes such a sensation; to be pungent; as, it bites like pepper or mustard.

To cause sharp pain; to produce anguish; to hurt or injure; to have the property of so doing.

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

- Prov. xxiii. 32.

To take a bait into the mouth, as a fish does; hence, to take a tempting offer.

To take or keep a firm hold; as, the anchor bites.

The act of seizing with the teeth or mouth; the act of wounding or separating with the teeth or mouth; a seizure with the teeth or mouth, as of a bait; as, to give anything a hard bite.

I have known a very good fisher angle diligently four or six hours for a river carp, and not have a bite.

- Walton.

The act of puncturing or abrading with an organ for taking food, as is done by some insects.

The wound made by biting; as, the pain of a dog's or snake's bite; the bite of a mosquito.

A morsel; as much as is taken at once by biting.

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.

A cheat; a trick; a fraud.

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

- Humorist.

A sharper; one who cheats.

(Print.) 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.

Related Words

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