Definition of "bite"

bite

/baɪt/

verb
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.
2. (transitive) To hold something by clamping one's teeth.
3. (intransitive) To attack with the teeth.
4. (intransitive) To behave aggressively; to reject advances.
5. (intransitive) To take hold; to establish firm contact with.
6. (intransitive) To have significant effect, often negative.
7. (intransitive, of a fish) To bite a baited hook or other lure and thus be caught.
8. (intransitive, figurative) To accept something offered, often secretly or deceptively, to cause some action by the acceptor.
9. (intransitive, transitive, of an insect) To sting.
10. (intransitive) To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which causes such a sensation; to be pungent.
11. (transitive, sometimes figurative) To cause sharp pain or damage to; to hurt or injure.
  Quotations
  […] froſts doe bite the Meads […]
  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, [Act V, scene ii], page 229, column 1
12. (intransitive) To cause sharp pain; to produce anguish; to hurt or injure; to have the property of so doing.
  Quotations
  At the laſt it [wine] biteth like a ſerpent, and ſtingeth like ‖ an adder.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Proverbs 23:32, column 1
13. (intransitive) To take or keep a firm hold.
14. (transitive) To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to.
  Quotations
  […] 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 […]
  1859, Charles Dickens, “Fire Rises”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], book II (The Golden Thread), page 152
15. (intransitive, slang) To lack quality; to be worthy of derision; to suck.
16. (transitive, informal, vulgar) To perform oral sex on. Used in invective.
17. (intransitive, African-American Vernacular, slang) To plagiarize, to imitate.
18. (obsolete) To deceive or defraud; to take in.
noun
countable and uncountable, plural bites
1. The act of biting.
  Quotations
  […] 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 […]
  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, […]; reprinted as The Compleat Angler (Homo Ludens; 6), Nieuwkoop, South Holland, Netherlands: Miland Publishers, 1969,
  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.
  2016, Mark Z. Danielewski, The Familiar, Volume 3: Honeysuckle & Pain, Pantheon Books, page 513
2. The wound left behind after having been bitten.
3. The swelling of one's skin caused by an insect's mouthparts or sting.
4. A piece of food of a size that would be produced by biting; a mouthful.
  Quotations
  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.
  1906, Hamilton Drummond, The Chain of Seven Lives, F. V. White & Co., Ltd., pages 182–183
5. (slang) Something unpleasant.
6. (slang) An act of plagiarism.
7. A small meal or snack.
  Quotations
  Would I take someone here for a first date? No. Would I go here for a cheap bite? Also no...
  2023 July 21, Billie Schwab Dunn, “I Tried Wetherspoons Food for the First Time-I Feared I'd Get Scurvy...”, in Daily Star
8. (figuratively, uncountable) Aggression.
  Quotations
  Kathy Santen is full of bite as the bizarrely seduced Lady Anne, although her exaggerated diction is a bit too snappishly Shakespearean.
  1996 April 22, Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
  In Tarabai’s text this exposure is direct, unusually blunt, full of bite and ridicule, and highly polemical.
  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, page 211
  City scored the goals but periods of ball possession were shared - the difference being Villa lacked bite in the opposition final third.
  2011 March 2, Saj Chowdhury, “Man City 3 - 0 Aston Villa”, in BBC‎
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.
  Quotations
  The baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite, by deceiving and overreaching.
  1725, Thomas Gordon, The Humorist
11. (colloquial, dated, slang) A sharper; one who cheats.
  Quotations
  [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.
  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., […], page 385, column 1
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.
14. (television) Ellipsis of sound bite.
  Quotations
  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.
  2015, Robert A. Papper, Broadcast News and Writing Stylebook

Definition of "bite"

bite

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