*bite*

n. [ L. arbiter; ar- (for ad) + the root of betere to go; hence properly, one who comes up to look on. ] 1. A person appointed, or chosen, by parties to determine a controversy between them. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ In modern usage, arbitrator is the technical word. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Any person who has the power of judging and determining, or ordaining, without control; one whose power of deciding and governing is not limited. [ 1913 Webster ]

For Jove is arbiter of both to man. Cowper. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- Arbitrator; umpire; director; referee; controller; ruler; governor. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. To act as arbiter between. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ 2d back, n. + bite. ] To wound by clandestine detraction; to censure meanly or spitefully (an absent person); to slander or speak evil of (one absent). Spenser. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. To censure or revile the absent. [ 1913 Webster ]

They are arrant knaves, and will backbite. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who backbites; a secret calumniator or detractor. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Eccl. Hist.) A member of a religious order, named from St. Barnabas. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. Bit p. p. Bitten Bit; p. pr. & vb. n. Biting. ] [ OE. biten, AS. bītan; akin to D. bijten, OS. bītan, OHG. bīzan, G. beissen, Goth. beitan, Icel. bīta, Sw. bita, Dan. bide, L. findere to cleave, Skr. bhid to cleave. √87. Cf. Fissure. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

1. To seize with the teeth, so that they enter or nip the thing seized; to lacerate, crush, or wound with the teeth; as, to bite an apple; to bite a crust; the dog bit a man. [ 1913 Webster ]

Such smiling rogues as these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To puncture, abrade, or sting with an organ (of some insects) used in taking food. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To cause sharp pain, or smarting, to; to hurt or injure, in a literal or a figurative sense; as, pepper bites the mouth. “Frosts do bite the meads.” Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. To cheat; to trick; to take in. [ Colloq. ] Pope. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to; as, the anchor bites the ground. [ 1913 Webster ]

The last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, . . . it turned and turned with nothing to bite. Dickens. [ 1913 Webster ]

To bite the dust,
To bite the ground, to fall in the agonies of death; as, he made his enemy bite the dust. --
To bite in (Etching), to corrode or eat into metallic plates by means of an acid. --
To bite the thumb at (any one), formerly a mark of contempt, designed to provoke a quarrel; to defy. “Do you bite your thumb at us?” Shak. --
To bite the tongue, to keep silence. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. 1. To seize something forcibly with the teeth; to wound with the teeth; to have the habit of so doing; as, does the dog bite? [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which causes such a sensation; to be pungent; as, it bites like pepper or mustard. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To cause sharp pain; to produce anguish; to hurt or injure; to have the property of so doing. [ 1913 Webster ]

At the last it [ wine ] biteth like serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Prov. xxiii. 32. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. To take a bait into the mouth, as a fish does; hence, to take a tempting offer. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. To take or keep a firm hold; as, the anchor bites. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ OE. bite, bit, bitt, AS. bite bite, fr. bītan to bite, akin to Icel. bit, OS. biti, G. biss. See Bite, v., and cf. Bit. ] 1. The act of seizing with the teeth or mouth; the act of wounding or separating with the teeth or mouth; a seizure with the teeth or mouth, as of a bait; as, to give anything a hard bite. [ 1913 Webster ]

I have known a very good fisher angle diligently four or six hours for a river carp, and not have a bite. Walton. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. The act of puncturing or abrading with an organ for taking food, as is done by some insects. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. The wound made by biting; as, the pain of a dog's or snake's bite; the bite of a mosquito. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. A morsel; as much as is taken at once by biting. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. The hold which the short end of a lever has upon the thing to be lifted, or the hold which one part of a machine has upon another. [ 1913 Webster ]

6. A cheat; a trick; a fraud. [ Colloq. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

The baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite, by deceiving and overreaching. Humorist. [ 1913 Webster ]

7. A sharper; one who cheats. [ Slang ] Johnson. [ 1913 Webster ]

8. (Print.) A blank on the edge or corner of a page, owing to a portion of the frisket, or something else, intervening between the type and paper. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. One who, or that which, bites; that which bites often, or is inclined to bite, as a dog or fish. “Great barkers are no biters.” Camden. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. One who cheats; a sharper. [ Colloq. ] Spectator. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ Pref. bi- + ternate. ] (Bot.) Doubly ternate, as when a petiole has three ternate leaflets. -- Bi*ter"nate*ly, adv. Gray. [1913 Webster]

n. [ L. coenobita, fr. Gr. koino`bios; koino`s common + bi`os life: cf. F. cénobite. ] One of a religious order, dwelling in a convent, or a community, in opposition to an anchoret, or hermit, who lives in solitude. Gibbon. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Min.) Native iron carbonate; -- usually called siderite. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. a member of a religious order living in common. Same as Cenobite. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A cohabitant. Hobbes. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ Cf. F. colombite. See Columbium. ] (Min.) A mineral of a black color, submetallic luster, and high specific specific gravity. It is a niobate (or columbate) of iron and manganese, containing tantalate of iron; -- first found in New England. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A mineral consisting principally of sulphate of iron; white copperas; -- so called because found in the province of Coquimbo, Chili. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ , n. A horse that has the habit of cribbing. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A deception; a cheat. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. To deceive; to trick; to gull. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Having the measure of a cubit. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } n. [ L. cucurbita a gourd: cf. F. cucurbite. See Gourd. ] (Chem.) A vessel or flask for distillation, used with, or forming part of, an alembic; a matrass; -- originally in the shape of a gourd, with a wide mouth. See Alembic. [ 1913 Webster ]

p. a. Rendered uninhabited. “Dishabited towns.” R. Carew. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Uninhabited. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ Pref. epi- + stilbite. ] (Min.) A crystallized, transparent mineral of the Zeolite family. It is a hydrous silicate of alumina and lime. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ Cf. Exhibitor. ] One who exhibits; one who presents a petition, charge or bill. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. The bite of a flea, or the red spot caused by the bite. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A trifling wound or pain, like that of the bite of a flea. Harvey. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. The freezing, or effect of a freezing, of some part of the body, as the ears, fingers, toes, or nose. Severe frostbite can lead to the loss of fingers or toes. Kane.

v. t. To expose to the effect of frost, or a frosty air; to blight or nip with frost. [ 1913 Webster ]

My wife up and with Mrs. Pen to walk in the fields to frostbite themselves. Pepys. [ 1913 Webster ]

p. p. & a. 1. Clothed; arrayed; dressed; as, he was habited like a shepherd. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Fixed by habit; accustomed. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

So habited he was in sobriety. Fuller. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. Inhabited. [ Archaic ] [ 1913 Webster ]

Another world, which is habited by the ghosts of men and women. Addison. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Uninhabited. [ Obs. ] Brathwait. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. An inhabitant. [ R. ] Derham. [ 1913 Webster ]

adj. 1. held back or restrained or prevented; as, in certain conditions previously inhibited conditioned reactions can reappear; -- of behaviors. Opposite of uninhibited. [ Narrower terms: pent-up, repressed ; stifled, strangled, suppressed ] Also See: reserved, restrained. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

2. Having a hesitancy or reluctance to exhibit normal emotional reactions; -- of people; as, he was too inhibited to make friends easily. [ PJC ]

prop. n. [ L. Jacobus James: cf. F. Jacobite. See 2d Jack. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

1. (Eng. Hist.) A partisan or adherent of James the Second, after his abdication, or of his descendants, an opposer of the revolution in 1688 in favor of William and Mary. Macaulay. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Eccl.) One of the sect of Syrian Monophysites. The sect is named after Jacob Baradæus, its leader in the sixth century. [ 1913 Webster ]

prop. a. Of or pertaining to the Jacobites.

n. [ Gr. ly`chnos a lamp + bi`os life. ] One who labors at night and sleeps in the day. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One of the posterity of Moab, the son of Lot. (Gen. xix. 37.) Also used adjectively. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A female Moabite. Ruth i. 22. [ 1913 Webster ]

(Archaeol.) A block of black basalt, found at Dibon in Moab by Rev. F. A. Klein, Aug. 19, 1868, which bears an inscription of thirty-four lines, dating from the 9th century b. c., and written in the Moabite alphabet, the oldest Phoenician type of the Semitic alphabet. It records the victories of Mesha, king of Moab, esp. those over Israel (2 Kings iii. 4, 5, 27). [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

n. (Min.) Same as Columbite. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖adv. [ L., on the way; ob (see Ob-) + iter a going, a walk, way. ] In passing; incidentally; by the way. [ 1913 Webster ]

n.; pl. obiter dicta (Law), An incidental and collateral opinion uttered by a judge. See Dictum, n., 2 (a). [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. pl. [ NL., fr. L. orbis an orb + tela a web. ] (Zool.) A division of spiders, including those that make geometrical webs, as the garden spider, or Epeira. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Zool.) The cow blackbird. [ Local, U. S. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who prohibits or forbids; a forbidder; an interdicter. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Jewish Hist.) One of the descendants of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, all of whom by his injunction abstained from the use of intoxicating drinks and even from planting the vine. Jer. xxxv. 2-19. Also, in modern times, a member of a certain society of abstainers from alcoholic liquors. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. To bite or nibble like a sheep; hence, to practice petty thefts. [ Obs. ] Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who practices petty thefts. [ Obs. ] Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

There are political sheepbiters as well as pastoral; betrayers of public trusts as well as of private. L'Estrange. [ 1913 Webster ]