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Bite   /baɪt/   Listen
noun
Bite  n.  
1.
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."
2.
The act of puncturing or abrading with an organ for taking food, as is done by some insects.
3.
The wound made by biting; as, the pain of a dog's or snake's bite; the bite of a mosquito.
4.
A morsel; as much as is taken at once by biting.
5.
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.
6.
A cheat; a trick; a fraud. (Colloq.) "The baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite, by deceiving and overreaching."
7.
A sharper; one who cheats. (Slang)
8.
(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.


verb
Bite  v. t.  (past bit; past part. bitten; pres. part. biting)  
1.
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."
2.
To puncture, abrade, or sting with an organ (of some insects) used in taking food.
3.
To cause sharp pain, or smarting, to; to hurt or injure, in a literal or a figurative sense; as, pepper bites the mouth. "Frosts do bite the meads."
4.
To cheat; to trick; to take in. (Colloq.)
5.
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."
To bite the dust, To bite the ground, 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 (any one), formerly a mark of contempt, designed to provoke a quarrel; to defy. "Do you bite your thumb at us?"
To bite the tongue, to keep silence.


Bite  v. i.  (past bit; past part. bitten; pres. part. biting)  
1.
To seize something forcibly with the teeth; to wound with the teeth; to have the habit of so doing; as, does the dog bite?
2.
To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which causes such a sensation; to be pungent; as, it bites like pepper or mustard.
3.
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."
4.
To take a bait into the mouth, as a fish does; hence, to take a tempting offer.
5.
To take or keep a firm hold; as, the anchor bites.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Bite" Quotes from Famous Books



... agen me. I don't say as it's everybody as ought to take the lowest place. The Lord knows I'm not proud, but I won't go into them chairs down by the font myself; but to see them Harrises, that to my certain knowledge hasn't a bite of butcher's meat in their heads but onst ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... argenteum. Here the horses drank their fill greedily, as if bent on quenching their thirst for past, present and future. Thalcave went first to beat the bushes and frighten away the cholinas, a most dangerous species of viper, the bite of which kills an ox in less ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... in a room guarded by triple windows, besides shutters closed with the greatest exactness, I have seen the curtains slightly agitated when the howling outside was somewhat louder than usual. "The wind," says Gregorovitch in his Winter's Tale, "howls like a dog; and like a dog will bite the feet and calves of those who have not duly provided themselves with fur-goloshes and doubly-thick pantaloons." Such a wind must not be suffered to intrude into any house intended ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... does there appear to have been any attempt to reduce it to service. Like its Indian ally it is fond of water, which it visits at regular intervals during the twenty-four hours; it also plasters itself with mud, which, when hardened by the sun, protects it from the bite of the gadflies which in spite of its thick hide seem to cause it considerable annoyance. It is relieved of a portion of the parasitic ticks, so common on the hides of thick-skinned animals, by means of the red-beaked rhinoceros birds, Buphaga erythrorhynca, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... I hadn't asked Miss Nefer my question. Everybody in the company knows she spends the hour before curtain-time getting into character, never parting her lips except for that purpose—or to bite your head off if you try to make the most ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber


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