Etimology
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.
noun
bit (plural bits)
A piece of metal placed in a horse's mouth and connected to the reins to direct the animal.
A rotary cutting tool fitted to a drill, used to bore holes.
(dated, British) A coin of a specified value.
(obsolete, Canada) A ten-cent piece, dime.
(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.
(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.
A small amount of something.
(informal) Specifically, a small amount of time.
(informal) A small fraction above a whole number.
(in the plural, informal, sports) Fractions of a second.
A portion of something.
Somewhat; something, but not very great; also used like jot and whit to express the smallest degree. See also a bit.
(slang) A prison sentence, especially a short one.
An excerpt of material making up part of a show, comedy routine, etc.
(slang) A gag or put-on; a humorous conceit, especially when insistently presented as true.
Short for bit part.
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.
(BDSM) A gag of a style similar to a bridle.
(MLE) A gun.
Examples
A horse hates having a bit put in its mouth.
a threepenny bit
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".
A quarter is two bits.
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.
He left after shaking her down for four bits for carrying the bags.
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.
‘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?’
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.
The movie lasted for two and a bit hours.
The 400 metres race was won in 47 seconds and bits.
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.
Am I bored? Not a bit of it!
My young companion was a bit of a poet.
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
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.
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.
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.
His bit about video games was not nearly as entertaining as the other segments of his show.
Are you serious, or is this a bit?
She acted her bit in the opening scene.
Jimmy: I need to get my hands on some bits. If you’re still in the business.Ronnie : Oi!Trojan : Ronnie. […] Trojan: Now that is a SIG Sauer P226.
Related words
synonyms
(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)
antonyms
(antonym(s) of "small amount of time"): while (US)
related terms
bits (“genitals”)
verb
bit (third-person singular simple present bits, present participle bitting, simple past and past participle bitted)
(transitive) To put a bridle upon; to put the bit in the mouth of (a horse).
Etimology
See bite
verb
bit
simple past of bite
(informal in US, archaic in UK) past participle of bite, bitten
Examples
Your dog bit me!
I have been bit by your dog!
adjective
bit (not comparable)
(chiefly in combination) Having been bitten.
Examples
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 saliva
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
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
Etimology
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.
noun
bit (plural bits)
(mathematics, computing) A binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0.
(computing) The smallest unit of storage in a digital computer, consisting of a binary digit.
(information theory, cryptography) Any datum that may take on one of exactly two values.
(information theory) A unit of measure for information entropy.
A microbitcoin, or a millionth of a bitcoin (0.000001 BTC).
Examples
Synonym: b
status bits on IRC
permission bits in a file system
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.
Related words
hyponyms
hidden bit
high-order bit
least significant bit
most significant bit
qubit