bit between one's teeth

Noun

bit between one's teeth

1. Complete control of a situation; a stance that cannot be controlled or restrained by anyone else.
   • If he was to get the bit between his teeth after he had got ordained and bought his living, he would play more pranks than ever he, Theobald, had done.1903, Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh
   • Unruly clients might take the bit between their teeth and threaten to drag their patron into the fray.1991, Stephen Kirby, Nick Hooper, The Cost of Peace: Assessing Europe's Security Options, →ISBN, page 11
2. A large degree of focus and commitment to a task.
   • The upheaval in the creative unions seems to have gone further than expected and the forces for renewal took the bit between their teeth — to such an extent that the writers' congress in June of the same year would follow more staid formulas and attempt more of a compromise between the old and the...1991, Roy Medvedev, Giulietto Chiesa, Time of Change: An Insider's View of Russia's Transformation, →ISBN, page 13
   • When my father had the bit between his teeth he would work all day and half the night, barely stopping to eat, snapping at anyone who interrupted him.2010, Helen Grant, The Glass Demon, →ISBN
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bit, between, teeth.
   • Some fellow British travellers at Xian, who own horses and therefore understand equine tack, pointed out — when I asked about the authenticity of the replicas — that the horses could not possibly have coped with the bit between their teeth (as they were shown) for long.2004, Maurice Cotterell, The Terracotta Warriors: The Secret Codes of the Emperor's Army, →ISBN
   • His eyebrows drew together, his hand found his pipe. He put the bit between his teeth and then he could think better, could think almost as well as when he had the strap of his accordion on his shoulder and his hands on the keys.2009, Geoffrey Homes, No Hands on the Clock, →ISBN, page 123