bite

/baɪt/

bite verb: to cut into something by clamping the teeth. Also the ellipsis of sound bite.

Verb

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

(transitive) To cut into something by clamping the teeth.
- As soon as you bite that sandwich, you'll know how good it is.
(transitive) To hold something by clamping one's teeth.
(intransitive) To attack with the teeth.
- That dog is about to bite!
(intransitive) To behave aggressively; to reject advances.
- If you see me, come and say hello. I don't bite.
(intransitive) To take hold; to establish firm contact with.
- I needed snow chains to make the tires bite.
(intransitive) To have significant effect, often negative.
- For homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages, rising interest will really bite.
(intransitive) To bite a baited hook or other lure and thus be caught.
- Are the fish biting today?
(figuratively, intransitive) To accept something offered, often secretly or deceptively, to cause some action by the acceptor.
- I've planted the story. Do you think they'll bite?
(intransitive, transitive) To sting.
- These mosquitoes are really biting today!
(intransitive) To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which causes such a sensation; to be pungent.
- It bites like pepper or mustard.
(figuratively, sometimes, transitive) To cause sharp pain or damage to; to hurt or injure.
- Pepper bites the mouth.
- […]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]...
(intransitive) To cause sharp pain; to produce anguish; to hurt or injure; to have the property of so doing.
- At the laſt it [wine] biteth like a ſerpent, and ſtingeth like ‖ an adder.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 23:32, column 1

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(intransitive) To take or keep a firm hold.
- The anchor bites.
(transitive) To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to.
- 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[…]1859, Charles Dickens, “Fire Rises”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book II (The Golden Thread), page 152
(slang, stative) To lack quality; to be worthy of derision; to suck.
- This music really bites.
(informal, transitive, vulgar) To perform oral sex on. Used in invective.
- You don't like that I sat on your car? Bite me.
(intransitive, slang, African-American Vernacular) To plagiarize, to imitate.
- He always be biting my moves.
(obsolete, slang, transitive) To deceive or defraud; to take in.

Noun (1)

bite (countable and uncountable, plural bites)

The act of biting.
- […]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, […], →OCLC...
- 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...2016, Mark Z. Danielewski, The Familiar, Volume 3: Honeysuckle & Pain, Pantheon Books, →ISBN, page 513
The wound left behind after having been bitten.
- That snake bite really hurts!
The swelling of one's skin caused by an insect's mouthparts or sting.
- After just one night in the jungle I was covered with mosquito bites.
Synonyms:

sting
A piece of food of a size that would be produced by biting; a mouthful.
- There were only a few bites left on the plate.
- 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
(slang) Something unpleasant.
- 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.1985 December 7, Sib Connor, “9to5: Still Putting In A Day's Work”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 21, page 2
(slang) An act of plagiarism.
- That song is a bite of my song!
A small meal or snack.
- a bite to eat
- I'll have a quick bite to quiet my stomach until dinner.
(figuratively, uncountable) incisiveness, provocativeness, exactness.
(figuratively, uncountable) Aggression.
- 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...
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.
(colloquial, dated) A cheat; a trick; a fraud.
- The baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite, by deceiving and overreaching.1725, Thomas Gordon, The Humorist
(colloquial, dated, slang) A sharper; one who cheats.
- [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 […], volume IV, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC, page 173
- So he went home cursing the Yorkshire bites, and swearing there was no living among them […]1828, The Newcastle Magazine, volume 7, page 85

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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.
(slang) A cut, a proportion of profits; an amount of money.
- I know three Americans who are running a bar. The cops come in all the time for a bite.1993, William S. Burroughs, edited by Oliver Harris, The Letters of William S. Burroughs, 1945–1959, New York: Penguin, →ISBN, page 92
The turn that a spin bowler imparts to a pitch.

Noun (2) capitalized: BITE

BITE (uncountable)

(abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of behavior, information, thoughts, emotions (“four aspects of people's lives that a cult attempts to control”).

Also used as

bite is also the ellipsis of sound bite.

bite meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

bite in Hindi

cut into by clamping the teeth: काटना kāṭnā, डसना ḍasnā, दंश dañś
hold something by clamping one’s teeth: काटना kāṭnā
attack with the teeth — see also maul: दंश dañś, डसना ḍasnā
act of biting: डसना ḍasnā

bite in Tamil

cut into by clamping the teeth: கடி kaṭi
hold something by clamping one’s teeth: பிடி piṭi
attack with the teeth — see also maul: கடி kaṭi
take hold: பிடி piṭi

bite in Bengali

hold something by clamping one’s teeth: কামড়ানো kamṛanō
attack with the teeth — see also maul: দংশন করা doṅśon kora
take hold: কামড়ানো kamṛanō

More languagesFewer languages

bite in Telugu: కొరుకు koruku, కాటు kāṭu, కుట్టు kuṭṭu
bite in Malayalam: കടി kaṭi
bite in Punjabi: ਬੁਰਕੀ Burakī
bite in Gujarati: કોળિયો koḷiyo
bite in Odia: ଦଂଶନ daṁśana
bite in Sanskrit: दशति daśati
bite in Assamese: কামোৰ kamür, খোঁট khü̃t, খুঁটিয়া khũtia
bite in Nepali: टोक्नु ṭoknu
bite in Tagalog: kagat
bite in Arabic: عَضَّ ʕaḍḍa, قَضَمَ qaḍama, عض ʕaḍḍ, قطم gaṭam
bite in Malay: gigit
bite in Indonesian: gigit
bite in Persian: گاز زدن gâz zadan, گزیدن gazidan, به دندان گرفتن be dandân gereftan, گاز گرفتن gâz gereftan
bite in Thai: กัด gàt
bite in Vietnamese: cắn, vết cắn
bite in Myanmar: ကိုက် kuik

Examples of bite in a sentence

Be careful when you pet that dog on the head; it may bite.
Sam unwrapped the sandwich and took a healthy bite out of the middle.
I once saw a geek bite the head off a live chicken.

All 40 example sentences with bite

Synonyms of bite

sting

Forms of bite

Verb
third-person singular present	bites
present participle	biting
past	bit
past participle	bitten
past participle	bit
Noun
plural	bites

Past tense of bite: bit

Plural of bite: bites

Origin of bite

From Middle English biten, from Old English bītan (“bite”), from Proto-West Germanic *bītan, from Proto-Germanic *bītaną (“bite”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“split”). Cognates include Saterland Frisian biete (“bite”), West Frisian bite (“bite”), Dutch bijten (“bite”), German Low German bieten (“bite”), German beißen, beissen (“bite”), Danish bide (“bite”), Swedish bita (“bite”), Norwegian Bokmål bite (“bite”), Norwegian Nynorsk bita (“bite”), Faroese and Icelandic bíta (“bite”), Gothic 𐌱𐌴𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (beitan, “bite”), Latin findō (“split”), Ancient Greek φείδομαι (pheídomai), Sanskrit भिद् (bhid, “break”).

Words formed from bite

Phrases with bite

59 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with bite

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bite

What does bite mean?: Bite means to cut into something by clamping the teeth.
What is bite in Hindi?: Bite in Hindi is काटना (kāṭnā), डसना (ḍasnā), दंश (dañś). See Bite meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is bite?: Bite can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce bite?: Bite is pronounced /baɪt/.
What is the past tense of bite?: The past tense of bite is bit.

Words near bite in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: bite (page history and authors); BITE (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-bite.ogg.

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