bit.
A small amount of something.
Meaning & usage
A small amount of something.
There were bits of paper all over the floor.
Does your leg still hurt? —Just a bit now.
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.
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
chamfering bit
Applied to a various small units of currency and coins. A coin of a specified value.
a threepenny bit
Applied to a various small units of currency and coins. 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.
Applied to a various small units of currency and coins. A coin of a value similar but not equal to this, in particular the ‘short bit’, i.e. the ten-cent piece or dime.
Applied to a various small units of currency and coins. 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.
Applied to a various small units of currency and coins. A unit of currency of the Dutch West Indies in the early 20th century, worth one fifth of a cent.
Applied to a various small units of currency and coins. Synonym of microbitcoin.
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.
A small fraction above a whole number.
The movie lasted for two and a bit hours.
Fractions of a second.
The 400 metres race was won in 47 seconds and bits.
A portion of something.
I'd like a big bit of cake, please.
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!
A replaceable tip for a hand tool or power tool, comprising the portion that drives a fastener.
driver bit
A prison sentence, especially a short one.
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.
A gag or put-on; a humorous conceit, especially when insistently presented as true.
Are you serious, or is this a bit?
Ellipsis of bit part.
She acted her bit in the opening scene.
The part of a key which enters the lock and acts upon the bolt and tumblers.
The cutting iron of a plane.
The bevelled front edge of an axehead along which the cutting edge runs.
A gag of a style similar to a bridle.
A gun.
Where this word comes from
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.
To put a bridle upon; to put the bit in the mouth of (a horse).
Where this word comes from
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.
Having been bitten.
Even though he's bit, of course the zombies would still chase him.
Where this word comes from
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.
A binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0.
The smallest unit of storage in a digital computer, consisting of a binary digit.
Any datum that may take on one of exactly two values.
status bits on IRC
permission bits in a file system
A unit of measure for information entropy.
A microbitcoin, or a millionth of a bitcoin (0.000001 BTC).
Where this word comes from
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.
simple past of bite
Your dog bit me!
past participle of bite, bitten
I've been bit by your dog!
Where this word comes from
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.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.