Word.ws English Dictionary

bitten one's lip

bitten one's lip is the past participle of bite one's lip.

Meaning of bite one's lip

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To forcibly prevent oneself from speaking, especially in order to avoid saying something inappropriate or likely to cause a dispute.
    • Buckingham bit his lip, for he saw the introduction of Lady Derby was likely to confuse and embroil every preparation which he had arranged for his defence; […]1822, [Walter Scott], chapter XIII, in Peveril of the Peak. […], volume IV, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 304

Questions about bitten one's lip

What is bitten one's lip the past participle of?
Bitten one's lip is the past participle of bite one's lip.

Words near bitten one's lip in the dictionary

  1. bitten in the ass
  2. bitten it
  3. bitten off
  4. bitten off more than one could chew
  5. bitten on granite
  6. bitten one's lip
  7. bitten one's nails
  8. bitten one's thumb
  9. bitten one's tongue
  10. bitten someone's hand off
  11. bitten someone's head off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bitten one's lip (page history and authors); bite one's lip (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: “bitten one's lip.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bitten_one%27s_lip. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.