Pronunciations (2)
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/baɪt/
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baɪt
Verb
To cut into something by clamping the teeth.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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As soon as you bite that sandwich, you'll know how good it is.
To hold something by clamping one's teeth.
Usage- Transitive
To attack with the teeth.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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That dog is about to bite!
To behave aggressively; to reject advances.
Usage- Intransitive
- in the negative
- Examples
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If you see me, come and say hello. I don't bite.
To take hold; to establish firm contact with.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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I needed snow chains to make the tires bite.
To have significant effect, often negative.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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For homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages, rising interest will really bite.
To bite a baited hook or other lure and thus be caught.
Usage- Intransitive
- of a fish
- Examples
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Are the fish biting today?
To accept something offered, often secretly or deceptively, to cause some action by the acceptor.
Usage- Figurative
- Intransitive
- Examples
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I've planted the story. Do you think they'll bite?
To sting.
Usage- Intransitive
- Transitive
- of an insect
- Examples
-
These mosquitoes are really biting today!
To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which causes such a sensation; to be pungent.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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It bites like pepper or mustard.
To cause sharp pain or damage to; to hurt or injure.
Usage- Figurative
- sometimes
- Transitive
- Examples
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Pepper bites the mouth.
[…]froſts doe bite the Meads[…]
To cause sharp pain; to produce anguish; to hurt or injure; to have the property of so doing.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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At the laſt it [wine] biteth like a ſerpent, and ſtingeth like ‖ an adder.
To take or keep a firm hold.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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The anchor bites.
To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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The anchor bites the ground.
[…]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[…]
To lack quality; to be worthy of derision; to suck.
Usage- Slang
- stative
- Examples
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This music really bites.
To perform oral sex on. Used in invective.
Usage- Informal
- Transitive
- Vulgar
- Examples
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You don't like that I sat on your car? Bite me.
To plagiarize, to imitate.
Usage- Intransitive
- Slang
- Examples
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He always be biting my moves.
To deceive or defraud; to take in.
Usage- Obsolete
- Slang
- Transitive
Noun
The act of biting.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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[…]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[…]
More examples (1)
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.
The wound left behind after having been bitten.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
That snake bite really hurts!
The swelling of one's skin caused by an insect's mouthparts or sting.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Synonyms
- Examples
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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.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
There were only a few bites left on the plate.
More examples (1)
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.
Something unpleasant.
Usage- Countable
- Slang
- Uncountable
- Examples
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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.
An act of plagiarism.
Usage- Countable
- Slang
- Uncountable
- Examples
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That song is a bite of my song!
A small meal or snack.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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a bite to eat
I'll have a quick bite to quiet my stomach until dinner.
More examples (2)
Wilma, I promise you one thing. Whatever scum is behind this, not a single cop on this police force will have a minute's rest until he's behind bars. Now let's grab a bite to eat.
Would I take someone here for a first date? No. Would I go here for a cheap bite? Also no...
incisiveness, provocativeness, exactness.
Usage- Figurative
- Uncountable
Aggression.
Usage- Figurative
- Uncountable
- Examples
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Kathy Santen is full of bite as the bizarrely seduced Lady Anne, although her exaggerated diction is a bit too snappishly Shakespearean.
In Tarabai’s text this exposure is direct, unusually blunt, full of bite and ridicule, and highly polemical.
More examples (1)
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.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
A cheat; a trick; a fraud.
Usage- Colloquial
- Countable
- Dated
- Uncountable
- Examples
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The baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite, by deceiving and overreaching.
A sharper; one who cheats.
Usage- Colloquial
- Countable
- Dated
- Slang
- Uncountable
- Examples
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More examples (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.
So he went home cursing the Yorkshire bites, and swearing there was no living among them […]
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.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
A cut, a proportion of profits; an amount of money.
Usage- Countable
- Slang
- Uncountable
- Examples
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I know three Americans who are running a bar. The cops come in all the time for a bite.
The turn that a spin bowler imparts to a pitch.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
Noun
a wound resulting from biting by an animal or a person
a small amount of solid food; a mouthful
- Examples
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all they had left was a bit of bread
a painful wound caused by the thrust of an insect's stinger into skin
- Synonyms
a light informal meal
(angling) an instance of a fish taking the bait
- Broader terms
- Examples
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after fishing for an hour he still had not had a bite
wit having a sharp and caustic quality
- Synonyms
- Examples
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he commented with typical pungency
the bite of satire
a strong odor or taste property
- Examples
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the pungency of mustard
the sulfurous bite of garlic
More examples (2)
the sharpness of strange spices
the raciness of the wine
the act of gripping or chewing off with the teeth and jaws
- Synonyms
a portion removed from the whole
- Broader terms
- Examples
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the government's weekly bite from my paycheck
Verb
to grip, cut off, or tear with or as if with the teeth or jaws
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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Gunny invariably tried to bite her
cause a sharp or stinging pain or discomfort
- Examples
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The sun burned his face
penetrate or cut, as with a knife
- Broader terms
- Examples
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The fork bit into the surface
deliver a sting to
- Broader terms
- Examples
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A bee stung my arm yesterday