Word.ws English Dictionary

bit

/ˈbɪt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˈbɪ̝t/

bit noun: a small amount of something. Also the ellipsis of bit part.

Noun (1)

bit (plural bits)

  1. A small amount of something.
    • There were bits of paper all over the floor.
    • Does your leg still hurt? —Just a bit now.
  2. A piece of metal placed in a horse's mouth and connected to the reins to direct the animal.
    • A horse hates having a bit put in its mouth.
  3. A rotary cutting tool, fitted to a drill, brace, or router, used to bore or drill holes or to remove material from the profile of the workpiece.
    • router bit
    • chamfering bit
  4. (UK, dated) A coin of a specified value.
    • a threepenny bit
    Synonyms:
    coin, piece
  5. (Canada, US, historical) A unit of currency worth one eighth of a dollar, originally of a Spanish dollar but later also US or Canadian; also, a coin with this value, in particular the silver Spanish real.
    • A quarter is two bits.
    • He left after shaking her down for four bits for carrying the bags.1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 16
    Synonyms:
    coin, piece
  6. (Canada, US, obsolete) A coin of a value similar but not equal to this, in particular the ‘short bit’, i.e. the ten-cent piece or dime.
    • The smallest coin we had in Canada in early days was a dime, worth ten cents. The Indians called this coin “a Bit”. Our next coin, double in buying power and in size, was a twenty-five cent piece and this the Indians called “Two Bits”.1941, Emily Carr, chapter 10, in Klee Wyck
    Synonyms:
    coin, piece
  7. (historical) A unit of currency and coin of the British West Indies worth six black dogs, originally equal to one-eighth of a Spanish dollar but later increasingly debased to one tenth, one eleventh, one twelfth, etc.
    • I trusted to the Lord to be with me; and at one of our trips to St. Eustatia, a Dutch island, I bought a glass tumbler with my half bit, and when I came to Montserrat I sold it for a bit, or sixpence.1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 6, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I
    Synonyms:
    coin, piece
  8. (historical) A unit of currency of the Dutch West Indies in the early 20th century, worth one fifth of a cent.
    Synonyms:
    coin, piece
  9. Synonym of microbitcoin.
    Synonyms:
    coin, piece, microbitcoin
  10. (informal) Specifically, a small amount of time.
    • I'll be there in a bit; I need to take care of something first.
    • He was here just a bit ago, but it looks like he's stepped out.
  11. (informal) A small fraction above a whole number.
    • The movie lasted for two and a bit hours.
  12. (in plural, informal) Fractions of a second.
    • The 400 metres race was won in 47 seconds and bits.
    Synonyms:
    split-second
Show 11 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. A portion of something.
    • I'd like a big bit of cake, please.
    • Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus.[…]A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that. Developed as a tool to electronically combine the sharpest bits of multiple digital images, focus stacking is a boon to biologists...2013 July-August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist
  2. Somewhat; something, but not very great; also used like jot and whit to express the smallest degree. See also a bit.
    • Am I bored? Not a bit of it!
    • My young companion was a bit of a poet.1835, Theodore Hook, Gilbert Gurney
  3. A replaceable tip for a hand tool or power tool, comprising the portion that drives a fastener.
    • Near-synonym: driver
    • driver bit
    Synonyms:
    driver
  4. (slang) A prison sentence, especially a short one.
    • Had it not been for the influence of Mrs. Booth and Hope Hall I should still be grafting or doing a bit in some stir1904, The Anamosa prison press, volume 7, Iowa. Colony of Detention at Anamosa
    • Before doing that I am going to tell you what was the result of my own incarceration, because I presume it may not be a secret to you, that I have done a "bit" myself, not the "bit" which the prosecuting attorney was so anxious to have me do.1916, Thomas Mott Osborne. Warden, Sing Sing Prison, N. Y., “Prison Reform”, in The Journal of sociologic medicine, volume 17, page 407
    Synonyms:
    bid
  5. An excerpt of material making up part of a show, comedy routine, etc.
    • His bit about video games was not nearly as entertaining as the other segments of his show.
  6. (slang) A gag or put-on; a humorous conceit, especially when insistently presented as true.
    • Are you serious, or is this a bit?
    • Also, I'm bi. I like dudes! ...That's weird to say. Everything I say feels like a bit now, god dammit.2024 March 1, F1NN5TER, 3:36 from the start, in Coming Out, archived from the original on 14 May 2024
  7. The part of a key which enters the lock and acts upon the bolt and tumblers.
  8. The cutting iron of a plane.
  9. The bevelled front edge of an axehead along which the cutting edge runs.
  10. A gag of a style similar to a bridle.
  11. (Multicultural-London-English) A gun.
    • Jimmy: I need to get my hands on some bits. If you’re still in the business.
      Ronnie (played by Nick Nevern): Oi!
      Trojan (played by Jean-Paul Van Cauwelaert): Ronnie.
      […]
      Trojan: Now that is a SIG Sauer P226.2013 December 23, Stephen Reynolds, 46:53 from the start, in Stephen Reynolds, director, Vendetta (film), spoken by Jimmy Vickers (Danny Dyer)
    Synonyms:
    skeng, toy, wap, firearm, gat, gun, iron, piece

Verb

bit (third-person singular simple present bits, present participle bitting, simple past and past participle bitted)

  1. (transitive) To put a bridle upon; to put the bit in the mouth of (a horse).

Adjective

bit (not comparable)

  1. (in-compounds) Having been bitten.
    • Even though he's bit, of course the zombies would still chase him.
    • Fortunately, someone who gets skeeter-bit this much may develop an immunity to the skeeter's saliva1984 July, Field & Stream, volume 89, number 3, page 24

Noun (2)

bit (plural bits)

  1. A binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0.
  2. The smallest unit of storage in a digital computer, consisting of a binary digit.
    Synonyms:
    b
  3. Any datum that may take on one of exactly two values.
    • status bits on IRC
    • permission bits in a file system
  4. A unit of measure for information entropy.
    • The researchers found that the original texts spanned a variety of entropy values in different languages, reflecting differences in grammar and structure.
      But strangely, the difference in entropy between the original, ordered text and the randomly scrambled text was constant across languages. This...2011 May 17, Lisa Grossman, “Entropy Is Universal Rule of Language”, in Wired Science, retrieved 26 Sep 2012
  5. A microbitcoin, or a millionth of a bitcoin (0.000001 BTC).

Proper noun (1) capitalized: BIT

BIT

  1. (UK, abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Behavioural Insights Team.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Bit

Bit

  1. An Austroasiatic language spoken in China and Laos.

Also used as

bit is also the ellipsis of bit part.

bit is also the simple past of bite.

bit is also the past participle of bite.

bit meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Telugu and Gujarati

bit in Hindi

portion
टुकड़ा ṭukṛā
math: binary digit
द्वयंक dvayaṅk

bit in Marathi

math: binary digit
द्वयंक dvayaṅka

bit in Telugu

rotary cutting tool
బిట్టు biṭṭu
small amount of something — see also a little, dash, pinch
ముక్క mukka, తుంపు tumpu, తునక tunaka

bit in Gujarati

math: binary digit
દ્વયંક dvayaṅk
More languagesFewer languages
bit in Nepali
द्वयंक dvayaṅka
bit in Arabic
بِت bit
bit in Vietnamese
phần, tí, bit

Examples of bit in a sentence

  • I've done my bit; I expect you to do yours.
  • A bootee or a bit of embroidery or anything at all?’1963, Margery Allingham, “The Beanspiller”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 186:
  • Developed as a tool to electronically combine the sharpest bits of multiple digital images, focus stacking is a boon to biologists seeking full focus on a micron scale.2013 July-August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist:
  • Not counting the days—that's okay for a county-time slap, but it'll make you crazy if you've got years to go on a felony bit.2001, Andrew H. Vachss, Pain management:
  • Only the year before, the conjure man had brought in the Jackson County madstone, from way over in Illinois, for a white peddler that had been dog-bit, and the man went ahead and died just the same1992, Robert Lewis Taylor, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters:

All 40 example sentences with bit

Synonyms of bit

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

10 more antonymsFewer antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of bit

Forms of bit

Noun
pluralbits
Verb
third-person singular presentbits
present participlebitting
past participlebitted
pastbitted

Plural of bit: bits

Origin of bit

From Middle English bitte, bite, from Old English bita (“bit; fragment; morsel”) and bite (“a bite; cut”), from Proto-Germanic *bitô and *bitiz; both from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”). More at bite. Cognates Cognate with West Frisian bit, Saterland Frisian Bit, Dutch bit, German Low German Beet, Biet, German Biss and Bissen, Danish bid, Swedish bit, Icelandic biti.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form. See bite. Replaced a former strong past tense, seen in Middle English bot and Old English bāt.

Coined by John Tukey in 1946 as an abbreviation of binary digit, probably influenced by connotations of “small portion”. First used in print 1948 by Claude Shannon. Compare byte and nybble, with similar food associations.

Words formed from bit

Phrases with bit

131 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with bit

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bit

What does bit mean?
Bit means a small amount of something.
What is bit in Hindi?
Bit in Hindi is टुकड़ा (ṭukṛā), द्वयंक (dvayaṅk). See Bit meaning in Hindi.
How do you use bit in a sentence?
I've done my bit; I expect you to do yours.
What part of speech is bit?
Bit can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bit?
Bit is pronounced /ˈbɪt/.
What is the plural of bit?
The plural of bit is bits.

Words near bit in the dictionary

  1. bisymmetries
  2. bisymmetry
  3. bisynchronous
  4. bisynchronously
  5. Bisztynek
  6. bit
  7. bit and bit
  8. bit array
  9. bit arrays
  10. bit back
  11. bit banging

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bit (page history and authors); BIT (page history and authors); Bit (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-bit.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bit.wav.

Cite this entry: “bit.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bit. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.