Word.ws English Dictionary

bit the dust

bit the dust is the simple past of bite the dust.

Meaning of bite the dust

Verb

bite the dust (third-person singular simple present bites the dust, present participle biting the dust, simple past bit the dust, past participle bitten the dust)

  1. (euphemistic, idiomatic) To die.
    • Ulysses killed Demoptolemus, Telemachus Euryades, Eumæus Elatus, while the stockman killed Pisander. These all bit the dust, and as the others drew back into a corner Ulysses and his men rushed forward and regained their spears by drawing them from the bodies of the dead1900, Samuel Butler, transl. The Odyssey, Book XXII., page 293
  2. (idiomatic) To quit, or fail.
    • My old backpack finally bit the dust the other day.

Questions about bit the dust

What is bit the dust the simple past of?
Bit the dust is the simple past of bite the dust.

Words near bit the dust in the dictionary

  1. bit stuffing
  2. bit the big one
  3. bit the biscuit
  4. bit the bullet
  5. bit the curb
  6. bit the dust
  7. bit the hand that fed one
  8. bit time
  9. bit times
  10. bit-bucket
  11. bit-buckets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bit the dust (page history and authors); bite the dust (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.

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