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. Cognates 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.
Canada, US, Historical 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.
He left after shaking her down for four bits for carrying the bags.1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 16:
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Canada, US, Obsolete A coin of a value similar but not equal to this, in particular the ‘short bit’, i.e. the ten-cent piece or dime.
The smallest coin we had in Canada in early days was a dime, worth ten cents. The Indians called this coin “a Bit”. Our next coin, double in buying power and in size, was a twenty-five cent piece and this the Indians called “Two Bits”.1941, Emily Carr, chapter 10, in Klee Wyck:
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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.
I trusted to the Lord to be with me; and at one of our trips to St. Eustatia, a Dutch island, I bought a glass tumbler with my half bit, and when I came to Montserrat I sold it for a bit, or sixpence.1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 6, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I:
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Historical A unit of currency of the Dutch West Indies in the early 20th century, worth one fifth of a cent.
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Synonym of microbitcoin.
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A small amount of something.
There were bits of paper all over the floor.
Does your leg still hurt? —Just a bit now.
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I've done my bit; I expect you to do yours.
‘No,’ said Luke, grinning at her. ‘You're not dull enough! […] What about the kid's clothes? I don't suppose they were anything to write home about, but didn't you keep anything? A bootee or a bit of embroidery or anything at all?’1963, Margery Allingham, “The Beanspiller”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 186:
"I suppose my first objective was to try and help a department, which was very much civil servants who are rotating around on a regular basis, to try and understand public transport a wee bit better and try and understand what was required to run a bus and rail network," muses Conway.2026 March 18, Chris Conway talks to Andy Comfort, “The RAIL Interview”, in RAIL, page 32:
Hobbies, Lifestyle, SportsIn plural, Informal Fractions of a second.
The 400 metres race was won in 47 seconds and bits.
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A portion of something.
I'd like a big bit of cake, please.
Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus.[…]A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that. Developed as a tool to electronically combine the sharpest bits of multiple digital images, focus stacking is a boon to biologists seeking full focus on a micron scale.2013 July-August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist:
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Somewhat; something, but not very great; also used like jot and whit to express the smallest degree. See also a bit.
Am I bored? Not a bit of it!
My young companion was a bit of a poet.1835, Theodore Hook, Gilbert Gurney:
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A replaceable tip for a hand tool or power tool, comprising the portion that drives a fastener.
Had it not been for the influence of Mrs. Booth and Hope Hall I should still be grafting or doing a bit in some stir1904, The Anamosa prison press, volume 7, Iowa. Colony of Detention at Anamosa:
Before doing that I am going to tell you what was the result of my own incarceration, because I presume it may not be a secret to you, that I have done a "bit" myself, not the "bit" which the prosecuting attorney was so anxious to have me do.1916, Thomas Mott Osborne. Warden, Sing Sing Prison, N. Y., “Prison Reform”, in The Journal of sociologic medicine, volume 17, page 407:
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Chino didn't make me think of Dachau or that notorious joint in Angola, Louisiana, where a brother who had done a bit there told me how they used to cut the grass on the front lawn with their fingernails.1994, Odie Hawkins, Lost Angeles, page 158:
Not counting the days—that's okay for a county-time slap, but it'll make you crazy if you've got years to go on a felony bit.2001, Andrew H. Vachss, Pain management:
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An excerpt of material making up part of a show, comedy routine, etc.
His bit about video games was not nearly as entertaining as the other segments of his show.
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Slang A gag or put-on; a humorous conceit, especially when insistently presented as true.
Are you serious, or is this a bit?
Also, I'm bi. I like dudes! ...That's weird to say. Everything I say feels like a bit now, god dammit.2024 March 1, F1NN5TER, 3:36 from the start, in Coming Out, archived from the original on 14 May 2024:
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Abbreviation, Ellipsis Ellipsis of bit part.
She acted her bit in the opening scene.
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The part of a key which enters the lock and acts upon the bolt and tumblers.
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The cutting iron of a plane.
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The bevelled front edge of an axehead along which the cutting edge runs.
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BDSM, Lifestyle, Sexuality A gag of a style similar to a bridle.
Jimmy: I need to get my hands on some bits. If you’re still in the business. Ronnie (played by Nick Nevern): Oi! Trojan (played by Jean-Paul Van Cauwelaert): Ronnie. […] Trojan: Now that is a SIG Sauer P226.2013 December 23, Stephen Reynolds, 46:53 from the start, in Stephen Reynolds, director, Vendetta (film), spoken by Jimmy Vickers (Danny Dyer):
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. Cognates 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.
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To put a bridle upon; to put the bit in the mouth of (a horse).
bit
adj
Etymology 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.
Even though he's bit, of course the zombies would still chase him.
Fortunately, someone who gets skeeter-bit this much may develop an immunity to the skeeter's saliva1984 July, Field & Stream, volume 89, number 3, page 24:
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Only the year before, the conjure man had brought in the Jackson County madstone, from way over in Illinois, for a white peddler that had been dog-bit, and the man went ahead and died just the same1992, Robert Lewis Taylor, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters:
He will not — he'll tell you not to be loco, climbing up trees late at night when you'll get bug-bit to death plus you can't see anything1998, Adele Griffin, Rainy Season, page 121:
Etymology 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.
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Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0.
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Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences The smallest unit of storage in a digital computer, consisting of a binary digit.
Computing, Engineering, Information theory, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A unit of measure for information entropy.
The researchers found that the original texts spanned a variety of entropy values in different languages, reflecting differences in grammar and structure. But strangely, the difference in entropy between the original, ordered text and the randomly scrambled text was constant across languages. This difference is a way to measure the amount of information encoded in word order, Montemurro says. The amount of information lost when they scrambled the text was about 3.5 bits per word.2011 May 17, Lisa Grossman, “Entropy Is Universal Rule of Language”, in Wired Science, retrieved 26 Sep 2012:
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A microbitcoin, or a millionth of a bitcoin (0.000001 BTC).