bit

• enPR: bĭt, IPA^(key): /bɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪt

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.

bit (plural bits)

1. 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.

2. A rotary cutting tool fitted to a drill, used to bore holes.
3. (dated, British) A coin of a specified value.

   a threepenny bit

4. (obsolete, Canada) A ten-cent piece, dime.
   • 1941, Emily Carr, chapter 10, in Klee Wyck‎:

     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".

5. (now US) A unit of currency or coin in the Americas worth a fraction of a Spanish dollar; now specifically, an eighth of a US dollar.

   A quarter is two bits.

   • 1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 6, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I:

     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.

   • 1966, Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, New York: Bantam Books, published 1976, →ISBN, page 16:

     He left after shaking her down for four bits for carrying the bags.

6. (historical, US) In the southern and southwestern states, a small silver coin (such as the real) formerly current; commonly, one worth about 12+¹⁄₂ cents; also, the sum of 12+¹⁄₂ cents.
7. A small amount of something.

   There were bits of paper all over the floor.

   Does your leg still hurt? —Just a bit now.

   I've done my bit; I expect you to do yours.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “The Beanspiller”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 186:

     ‘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?’

8. (informal) Specifically, a small amount of time.

   I'll be there in a bit; I need to take care of something first.

   He was here just a bit ago, but it looks like he's stepped out.

9. (informal) A small fraction above a whole number.

   The movie lasted for two and a bit hours.

10. (in the plural, informal, sports) Fractions of a second.

    The 400 metres race was won in 47 seconds and bits.

11. A portion of something.

    I'd like a big bit of cake, please.

    • 2013 July-August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist:

      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.

12. 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!

    • T. Hook

      My young companion was a bit of a poet.

13. (slang) A prison sentence, especially a short one.
    • 1904, The Anamosa prison press, volume 7, Iowa. Colony of Detention at Anamosa:

      Had it not been for the influence of Mrs. Booth and Hope Hall I should still be grafting or doing a bit in some stir

    • 1916, Thomas Mott Osborne. Warden, Sing Sing Prison, N. Y., “Prison Reform”, in The Journal of sociologic medicine, volume 17, page 407:

      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.

    • 1994, Odie Hawkins, Lost Angeles, page 158:

      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.

    • 2001, Andrew H. Vachss, Pain management:

      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.

14. 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.

15. (slang) A gag or put-on; a humorous conceit, especially when insistently presented as true.

    Are you serious, or is this a bit?

    • 2024 March 1, F1NN5TER, 3:36 from the start, in Coming Out‎, archived from the original on 14 May 2024:

      Also, I'm bi. I like dudes! ...That's weird to say. Everything I say feels like a bit now, god dammit.

16. Short for bit part.

    She acted her bit in the opening scene.

17. The part of a key which enters the lock and acts upon the bolt and tumblers.[1]
18. The cutting iron of a plane.[2]
19. The bevelled front edge of an axehead along which the cutting edge runs.
20. (BDSM) A gag of a style similar to a bridle.
21. (MLE) A gun.
    • 2013 December 23, Stephen Reynolds, 46:53 from the start, in Stephen Reynolds, director, Vendetta (film), spoken by Jimmy Vickers (Danny Dyer):

      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.

• (coin): coin, piece
• (small piece): morsel (of food), piece, scrap
• (portion): portion, share, segment
• (horse equipment): snaffle, pelham, kimberwicke
• (prison sentence): bid
• (gun): toy (MLE)

• (antonym(s) of “small amount of time”): while (US)

• bits (“genitals”)

bit (third-person singular simple present bits, present participle bitting, simple past and past participle bitted)

1. (transitive) To put a bridle upon; to put the bit in the mouth of (a horse).

See bite

bit

1. simple past of bite

   Your dog bit me!

2. (informal in US, archaic in UK) past participle of bite, bitten

   I have been bit by your dog!

bit (not comparable)

1. (chiefly in combination) Having been bitten.

   Even though he's bit, of course the zombies would still chase him.

   • 1984 July, Field & Stream, volume 89, number 3, page 24:

     Fortunately, someone who gets skeeter-bit this much may develop an immunity to the skeeter's saliva

   • 1992, Robert Lewis Taylor, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters‎:

     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 same

   • 1998, Adele Griffin, Rainy Season‎, page 121:

     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 anything

Coined by John Tukey in 1946 as an abbreviation of binary digit, probably influenced by connotations of “small portion”.[1][2] First used in print 1948 by Claude Shannon.[3] Compare byte and nybble, with similar food associations.

bit (plural bits)

1. (mathematics, computing) A binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0.
2. (computing) The smallest unit of storage in a digital computer, consisting of a binary digit.

   Synonym: b

3. (information theory, cryptography) Any datum that may take on one of exactly two values.

   status bits on IRC

   permission bits in a file system

4. (information theory) A unit of measure for information entropy.
   • 2011 May 17, Lisa Grossman, “Entropy Is Universal Rule of Language”, in Wired Science‎, retrieved 2012-09-26:

     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.

5. A microbitcoin, or a millionth of a bitcoin (0.000001 BTC).

• ban, nat, qubit

• Bti, ITB, TBI, TiB, tib

From Proto-Turkic *bït (“louse”).

• IPA^(key): [bit]

• Audio (Baku)

  (file)

bit (definite accusative biti, plural bitlər)

1. louse

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencian) [ˈbit]
• Rhymes: -it

bit m (plural bits)

1. (computing) bit

• IPA^(key): [ˈbɪt]

• audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪt
• Homophone: byt

Borrowed from English bit, from binary digit.

bit m inan

1. (computing) bit

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

bit

1. masculine singular passive participle of bít

• bit in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu
• bit in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989
• bit in Akademický slovník cizích slov, 1995, at prirucka.ujc.cas.cz

• IPA^(key): /bɪt/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: bit
• Rhymes: -ɪt

Ablaut of bijten.

bit n (plural bitten, diminutive bitje n)

1. bit (for a working animal)
2. bit (rotary cutting tool)
3. mouthguard

From English bit.

bit m (plural bits, diminutive bitje n)

1. bit (binary digit)
2. bit (unit of storage)
3. bit (datum with two possible values)

From English.

• IPA^(key): /bit/

• Audio

  (file)

bit m (plural bits)

1. (computing) bit

• bit le moins significatif
• bit le plus significatif

• “bit”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From English bit.[1]

• IPA^(key): [ˈbit]
• Hyphenation: bit
• Rhymes: -it

bit (plural bitek)

1. (computing) bit (binary digit)

• bit in Ittzés, Nóra (ed.). A magyar nyelv nagyszótára (‘A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2006–2031 (work in progress; published A–ez as of 2024)

• IPA^(key): [ˈbɪt]
• Hyphenation: bit

From English bit (“binary digit”), 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”).

bit (first-person possessive bitku, second-person possessive bitmu, third-person possessive bitnya)

1. (computing) bit, smallest unit of storage.

From Dutch biet, from Middle Dutch bete, from Latin bēta.

bit (first-person possessive bitku, second-person possessive bitmu, third-person possessive bitnya)

1. Beta vulgaris, common beet, beetroot, sugar beet, and chard.

• “bit” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

From Proto-Turkic *bït.

bit

1. louse

• N. A. Baskakov, S.M. Šapšala, editor (1973), “bit”, in Karaimsko-Russko-Polʹskij Slovarʹ [Karaim-Russian-Polish Dictionary], Moscow: Moskva, →ISBN

From Proto-Turkic *bït (“louse”).

• IPA^(key): [bɪt], [bi(ˑ)t], [biːt]
• (Xarrâbî) IPA^(key): [bɪt], [bit]

bit (definite accusative bitü, plural bitlər)

1. louse

• Doerfer, Gerhard (1980) Wörterbuch des Chaladsch (Dialekt von Charrab) [Khalaj dictionary] (in German), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó
• Doerfer, Gerhard (1988) Grammatik des Chaladsch [Grammar of Khalaj] (in German), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, →ISBN, →OCLC

• IPA^(key): /bit/

bit

1. sun

• Hkaw Luk (2017) A grammatical sketch of Lacid‎, Chiang Mai: Payap University (master thesis)

• IPA^(key): /bʲit/

bit

1. supine of biś

From English beat.

bit

1. beat

From Old Norse biti.

bit m (definite singular biten, indefinite plural biter, definite plural bitene)

1. a bit, piece (of something)
2. a bite, mouthful (of food)

• isbit
• smakebit

From English bit (“binary digit”).

bit m (definite singular biten, indefinite plural bit or biter, definite plural bitene)

1. a bit (binary digit)

• “bit” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

• bætta (piece, dialectal)

From Old Norse.

• IPA^(key): /biːt/

bit m (definite singular biten, indefinite plural bitar, definite plural bitane)

1. a bit, piece (of something)

• isbit
• smakebit

Borrowed from English bit (“binary digit”).

• IPA^(key): /bɪtː/

bit m (definite singular biten, indefinite plural bit or bitar, definit plural bitane)

1. a bit (binary digit)

Inherited from Old Norse bit.

• IPA^(key): /biːt/

bit n (definite singular bitet, indefinite plural bit, definite plural bita)

1. a bite (e.g. insect bite, dog bite)
2. a bite, mouthful (of food)

From the first person singular present indicative of Old Norse bíta, and from the second person singular imperative Old Norse bíta.

• IPA^(key): /biːt/

bit

1. inflection of bite:
   1. present
   2. imperative

• “bit” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

bit

1. third-person plural future of is

• IPA^(key): /bit/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -it
• Syllabification: bit
• Homophones: bid, Bid

Borrowed from English bit.

bit m inan (related adjective bitowy)

1. (mathematics, computing) bit (binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0)

   bit informacji ― a bit of information

   bit po bicie ― bit by bit

Borrowed from English beat.

• beat

bit m inan

1. beat (instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music)
2. (music) beat (rhythm signalled by a conductor or other musician to the members of a group of musicians)

Borrowed from English drill bit.

bit m inan

1. drill bit

Borrowed from English big beat.

• beat

bit m inan

1. big beat (form of pop music having distorted breakbeats at a moderate tempo)

   Synonym: big-beat

   polski bit ― Polish big beat

• bit in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• bit in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Unadapted borrowing from English bit.

bit m (plural bits)

1. (mathematics, computing) bit (binary digit)

• Abbreviations: b

• Multiples: kilobit, megabit, gigabit, terabit, petabit, exabit, zettabit, yottabit

• byte (unit equivalent to 8 bits)

Borrowed from English bit or French bit.

bit m (plural biți)

1. (computing) bit

Related to German bis.

• IPA^(key): /bɪt/
• Hyphenation: bit
• Rhymes: -ɪt

bit

1. until

bit

1. until, to

• Marron C. Fort (2015) “bit”, in Saterfriesisches Wörterbuch mit einer phonologischen und grammatischen Übersicht, Buske, →ISBN

bit

1. Little.
   • 1889, Jessup Whitehead, The Steward's Handbook and Guide to Party Catering, page 439:

     A bit wee lambie

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

     He laid a hundred guineas with the laird of Slofferfield that he would drive four horses through the Slofferfield loch, and in the prank he had his bit chariot dung to pieces and a good mare killed.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

From bȉti (“to be”).

• IPA^(key): /bîːt/

bȋt f (Cyrillic spelling би̑т)

1. essence
2. point, meaning

From English bit.

• IPA^(key): /bît/

bȉt m (Cyrillic spelling би̏т)

1. (computing) bit

From Serbo-Croatian biti, from Proto-Slavic *byti, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *bū́ˀtei, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH-.

bit pf or impf

1. to be

• Walter Breu and Giovanni Piccoli (2000), Dizionario croato molisano di Acquaviva Collecroce: Dizionario plurilingue della lingua slava della minoranza di provenienza dalmata di Acquaviva Collecroce in Provincia di Campobasso (Parte grammaticale)., pp. 409–412

Borrowed from English bit.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbit/ [ˈbit̪]
• Rhymes: -it
• Syllabification: bit

bit m (plural bits)

1. bit (binary digit)

• “bit”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

From Old Norse biti.

• IPA^(key): /biːt/

• audio (Gotland)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːt

bit c

1. a piece (forming a part of some whole)

   en pusselbit

   a puzzle piece

   en tårtbit / en bit tårta [note that there is no preposition]

   a piece of cake (not an idiom in Swedish – see lätt som en plätt)

   Jag åt tre bitar McNuggets

   I ate three pieces of McNuggets

   Koppen föll i golvet och gick i tusen bitar

   The cup fell to the floor and broke [went] into a thousand pieces

   torskfilé i bitar

   cod fillet cut into pieces

   1. a bit

      Actionhjälten sprängde skurkarna i bitar

      The action hero blew the bad guys to pieces/bits

2. a bit (certain (not insignificant) distance)

   Den ligger en bit väster om byn

   It lies a bit west of the village

   Huset ligger en bit längre fram

   The house is a bit further ahead

   Det simmar en svan en bit ut på sjön

   There is a swan swimming a bit out on the lake

   Vi följde med henne en bit på vägen

   We accompanied her part of the way [We followed with her a bit on the way (to where she was going)]

   Det är en bra bit till Säffle

   It's quite a drive to Säffle ["It is a good bit to Säffle" – "bra bit" is a common collocation]

   Ta på dig vandringskängorna. Det är en bit att gå.

   Put on your hiking boots. It's a bit of a walk [a bit (implied long) to walk].

   1. way, ways, distance (when more idiomatic)
   2. (figuratively) a bit (of time)

      Vi planerar att skaffa katt en bit längre fram [can also be expressed as "lite längre fram"]

      We're planning to get a cat a bit later on ["further ahead" (longer forth) – still thought of as a distance]

3. a tune, a piece (song)

   Synonyms: låt, sång

   en svängig bit

   a swinging tune

Del (“part”) is often more idiomatic when piece is interchangeable with part.

• bitsocker (“sugar in the form of sugar cubes, lump sugar”)
• i bitar
• pusselbit (“puzzle piece”)
• sockerbit (“sugar cube”)