Word.ws English Dictionary

bites the dust

bites the dust is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 bites the dust

What is bites the dust the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Bites the dust is the third-person singular simple present indicative of bite the dust.

Words near bites the dust in the dictionary

  1. bites someone's head off
  2. bites the big one
  3. bites the biscuit
  4. bites the bullet
  5. bites the curb
  6. bites the dust
  7. bites the hand that feeds one
  8. bitesful
  9. bitesheep
  10. bitesheeps
  11. biteshipe

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bites 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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