bit | |
1. subst. 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. subst. A rotary cutting tool fitted to a drill, used to bore holes. | |
3. subst. (dated, British) A coin of a specified value. (Also formerly used for a nine-pence coin in the British Caribbean, and a fourpenny piece, or groat, in the British West Indies.) | |
a threepenny bit | |
4. subst. (obsolete, Canada) A ten-cent piece, dime. | |
5. subst. (US) An eighth of a dollar. Note that there is no coin minted worth 12.5 cents. (When this term first came into use, the Spanish 8 reales coin was widely used as a dollar equivalent, and thus the 1 re | |
A quarter is two bits. | |
6. subst. (historical, US) In the southern and southwestern states, a small silver coin (such as the real) formerly current; commonly, one worth about 12½ cents; also, the sum of 12½ cents. | |
7. subst. 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. | |
8. subst. (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. subst. A portion of something. | |
I'd like a big bit of cake, please. | |
10. subst. Somewhat; something, but not very great; also used like jot and whit to express the smallest degree. | |
Am I bored? Not a bit of it! | |
11. subst. (slang) A prison sentence, especially a short one. | |
12. subst. (anchor, An excerpt of material) 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. | |
13. subst. The part of a key which enters the lock and acts upon the bolt and tumblers. | |
14. subst. The cutting iron of a plane. | |
15. adv. To a small extent; in a small amount (usually with "a"). | |
That's a bit too sweet. | |
16. v. To put a bridle upon; to put the bit in the mouth of (a horse). | |
17. v. simple past tense of bite | |
Your dog bit me! | |
18. v. (informal in US, archaic in Britain) past of bite, bitten | |
I have been bit by your dog! | |
19. adj. (colloquial) bitten. | |
Even though he's bit, of course the zombies would still chase him. | |
20. adj. (only in combination) Having been bitten. | |
21. subst. (mathematics, computing) A binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0. | |
22. subst. (computing) The smallest unit of storage in a digital computer, consisting of a binary digit. | |
23. subst. (information theory, cryptography) Any datum that may take on one of exactly two values. | |
status bits on IRC; permission bits in a file system | |
24. subst. (information theory) A unit of measure for information entropy. | |
25. subst. A microbitcoin, or a millionth of a bitcoin (0.000001 BTC). | |