Word.ws English Dictionary

bitten back

bitten back is the past participle of bite back.

Meaning of bite back

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To retaliate; to give a sharp retort.
  2. (transitive) To repress (an emotion or a response).
    • He bit back his anger and managed a courteous reply.

Questions about bitten back

What is bitten back the past participle of?
Bitten back is the past participle of bite back.

Words near bitten back in the dictionary

  1. bittacles
  2. Bittaford
  3. bitte
  4. bitted
  5. bitten
  6. bitten back
  7. bitten by the same bug
  8. bitten down
  9. bitten in
  10. bitten in the arse
  11. bitten in the ass

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bitten back (page history and authors); bite back (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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Cite this entry: “bitten back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bitten_back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.