Word.ws English Dictionary

bitter ends

bitter ends is the plural of bitter end.

Meaning of bitter end

Noun

bitter end (plural bitter ends)

  1. That part of an anchor cable which is abaft the bitts and thus remains inboard when a ship is riding at anchor.
    • pay out a rope to the bitter end (pay out all of the rope)
  2. The final six fathoms (11 m) of anchor chain before the point of attachment in the chain locker of modern US naval vessels.
  3. (idiomatic) The end of a long and difficult process.

Questions about bitter ends

What is bitter ends the plural of?
Bitter ends is the plural of bitter end.

Words near bitter ends in the dictionary

  1. bitter cucumber
  2. bitter cucumbers
  3. Bitter electromagnet
  4. Bitter electromagnets
  5. bitter end
  6. bitter ends
  7. bitter gourd
  8. bitter gourds
  9. bitter herbs
  10. bitter melon
  11. bitter melons

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bitter ends (page history and authors); bitter end (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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