Word.ws English Dictionary

bites one's tongue

bites one's tongue is the third-person singular simple present indicative of bite one's tongue.

Meaning of bite one's tongue

Verb

bite one's tongue (third-person singular simple present bites one's tongue, present participle biting one's tongue, simple past bit one's tongue, past participle bitten one's tongue)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To resist the urge to speak out, especially in order to avoid saying something inappropriate or likely to cause a dispute.
    • She wanted to go see a movie called Gigi, which I was not too thrilled about. But being a gentleman, I bit my tongue and said, “Okay.”2011, Mike Pappas, Growing Up the Greek Way in the Big Apple, page 103
    Synonyms:
    bite one's lip

Questions about bites one's tongue

What is bites one's tongue the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Bites one's tongue is the third-person singular simple present indicative of bite one's tongue.

Words near bites one's tongue in the dictionary

  1. bites off more than one can chew
  2. bites on granite
  3. bites one's lip
  4. bites one's nails
  5. bites one's thumb
  6. bites one's tongue
  7. bites someone's hand off
  8. bites someone's head off
  9. bites the big one
  10. bites the biscuit
  11. bites the bullet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bites one's tongue (page history and authors); bite one's tongue (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:

Cite this entry: “bites one's tongue.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bites_one%27s_tongue. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.