bit
/ˈbɪt/ noun, verb, adjective, proper noun
Also a form of bite
Forms bits bitting bitted
- noun A small amount of something. “There were bits of paper all over the floor.”
- noun A piece of metal placed in a horse's mouth and connected to the reins to direct the animal. “A horse hates having a bit put in its mouth.”
- noun A rotary cutting tool, fitted to a drill, brace, or router, used to bore or drill holes or to remove material from the profile of the workpiece. “router bit”
- noun (dated, UK) A coin of a specified value. “a threepenny bit”
- noun (historical, US and Canada) A unit of currency worth one eighth of a dollar, originally of a Spanish dollar but later also US or Canadian; also, a coin with this value, in particular the silver Spanish real. “A quarter is two bits.”
- noun (obsolete, US and Canada) A coin of a value similar but not equal to this, in particular the ‘short bit’, i.e. the ten-cent piece or dime.
- noun (historical) A unit of currency and coin of the British West Indies worth six black dogs, originally equal to one-eighth of a Spanish dollar but later increasingly debased to one tenth, one eleventh, one twelfth, etc.
- noun (historical) A unit of currency of the Dutch West Indies in the early 20th century, worth one fifth of a cent.
- verb (transitive) To put a bridle upon; to put the bit in the mouth of (a horse).
- adjective (chiefly in combination) Having been bitten. “Even though he's bit, of course the zombies would still chase him.”
- noun (mathematics, computing) A binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0.
- noun (computing) The smallest unit of storage in a digital computer, consisting of a binary digit.
- noun (information theory, cryptography) Any datum that may take on one of exactly two values. “status bits on IRC”
- noun (information theory) A unit of measure for information entropy.
- noun A microbitcoin, or a millionth of a bitcoin (0.000001 BTC).
- proper noun An Austroasiatic language spoken in China and Laos.
Synonyms
morsel piece scrap ace atom thought atomy aught bissel continental crumb glimpse dab damn dash diddly glint dot spatter drop spot chip flake fleck moment mo minute second bite snatch
Antonyms
age while aeon ages blue moon coon's age crow's age dog's age donkey's years eld eon eternity
Etymology
From Middle English bitte, bite, from Old English bita (“bit; fragment; morsel”) and bite (“a bite; cut”), from Proto-Germanic *bitô and *bitiz; both from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”). More at bite.
Cognate with West Frisian bit, Saterland Frisian Bit, Dutch bit, German Low German Beet, Biet, German Biss and Bissen, Danish bid, Swedish bit, Icelandic biti.
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
See bite. Replaced a former strong past tense, seen in Middle English bot and Old English bāt.
Coined by John Tukey in 1946 as an abbreviation of binary digit, probably influenced by connotations of “small portion”. First used in print 1948 by Claude Shannon. Compare byte and nybble, with similar food associations.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The part of a bridle, usually of iron, which is inserted in the mouth of a horse, and having appendages to which the reins are fastened. Shak.
- noun Fig.: Anything which curbs or restrains.
- verb To put a bridle upon; to put the bit in the mouth of.
- verb imp. & p. p. of Bite.
Etymology [OE. bitt, bite, AS. bite, bite, fr. bitan to bite. See Bite, n. & v., and cf. Bit a morsel.]
Etymology [OE. bite, AS. bita, fr. bitan to bite; akin to D. beet, G. bissen bit, morsel, Icel. biti. See Bite, v., and cf. Bit part of a bridle.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “bit”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details