different between pinch vs bite

English

Etymology

From Middle English pinchen, from Old French *pinchier, pincer (“to pinch”), from Vulgar Latin *pinci?re (“to puncture, pinch”), from possible merger of *puncti?re (“a puncture, sting”), from Latin puncti? (“a puncture, prick”) and *picc?re (“to strike, sting”), from Frankish *pikk?n, from Proto-Germanic *pikk?n? (“to pick, peck, prick”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?nt?/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Verb

pinch (third-person singular simple present pinches, present participle pinching, simple past and past participle pinched)

1. To squeeze a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.

   The children were scolded for pinching each other.

   This shoe pinches my foot.

2. To squeeze between the thumb and forefinger.
3. To squeeze between two objects.
4. (slang, transitive) To steal, usually something inconsequential.

   Someone has pinched my handkerchief!
5. (slang, transitive) To arrest or capture.
6. (horticulture) To cut shoots or buds of a plant in order to shape the plant, or to improve its yield.
7. (nautical) To sail so close-hauled that the sails begin to flutter.
8. (hunting) To take hold; to grip, as a dog does.
9. (obsolete, intransitive) To be stingy or covetous; to live sparingly.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Gower to this entry?)

   • 1788, Benjamin Franklin (attributed), Paper

     the wretch whom avarice bids to pinch and spare

10. To seize; to grip; to bite; said of animals.
11. (figuratively) To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve.

    to be pinched for money

    • c. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War

      want of room […] which pincheth the whole nation

    • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 2:

      The Christian also spurns the pinched and mumping sick-room attitude, and the lives of saints are full of a kind of callousness to diseased conditions of body which probably no other human records show.

12. To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a pinch.
13. (obsolete) To complain or find fault.
    • 1809, Alexander Chalmers ed. The Works of the English Poets, from Cahucer to Cowper, Vol. 1, modern rendering of poem imputed to Geoffrey Chaucer, "A Ballad which Chaucer made in Praise or rather Dispraise of Women for their Doubleness":

      Therefore who so them accuse

      Of any double entencion,

      To speake, rowne, other to muse,

      To pinch at their condicion,

      All is but false collusion,

      I dare rightwell the sothe express,

      They have no better protection,

      But shrowd them vnder doubleness.

Derived terms

• pinch off
• pinch out
• pinch a loaf

Translations

Noun

pinch (plural pinches)

1. The action of squeezing a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
2. A close compression of anything with the fingers.

   I gave the leather of the sofa a pinch, gauging the texture.

3. A small amount of powder or granules, such that the amount could be held between fingertip and thumb tip.
4. An awkward situation of some kind (especially money or social) which is difficult to escape.
   • 1955, Rex Stout, "Die Like a Dog", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, page 171:

     It took nerve and muscle both to carry the body out and down the stairs to the lower hall, but he damn well had to get it out of his place and away from his door, and any of those four could have done it in a pinch, and it sure was a pinch.

5. A metal bar used as a lever for lifting weights, rolling wheels, etc.
6. An organic herbal smoke additive.
7. (physics) A magnetic compression of an electrically-conducting filament.
8. The narrow part connecting the two bulbs of an hourglass.
   • 2001, Terry Pratchett: Thief of Time:

     It looked like an hourglass, but all those little glittering shapes tumbling through the pinch were seconds.

9. (slang) An arrest.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (pinchi)

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle English biten, from Old English b?tan, from Proto-Germanic *b?tan?, from Proto-Indo-European *b?eyd- (“to split”). Cognates include West Frisian bite, Low German bieten, Dutch bijten, Swedish bita, German beißen, Danish bide, Norwegian Bokmål bite, Norwegian Nynorsk bita, Gothic ???????????????????????? (beitan), and through Indo-European, Ancient Greek ???????? (pheídomai), Sanskrit ???? (bhid, “to break”), Latin findo (“split”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: b?t, IPA^(key): /ba?t/
• (Canada, regional US) IPA^(key): /b??t/
• Rhymes: -a?t
• Homophones: bight, by't, byte

Verb

bite (third-person singular simple present bites, present participle biting, simple past bit, past participle bitten or (rare) bit)

1. (transitive) To cut into something by clamping the teeth.

   As soon as you bite that sandwich, you'll know how good it is.

2. (transitive) To hold something by clamping one's teeth.
3. (intransitive) To attack with the teeth.

   That dog is about to bite!

4. (intransitive) To behave aggressively; to reject advances.

   If you see me, come and say hello. I don't bite.

5. (intransitive) To take hold; to establish firm contact with.

   I needed snow chains to make the tires bite.

6. (intransitive) To have significant effect, often negative.

   For homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages, rising interest will really bite.

7. (intransitive, of a fish) To bite a baited hook or other lure and thus be caught.

   Are the fish biting today?

8. (intransitive, figuratively) To accept something offered, often secretly or deceptively, to cause some action by the acceptor.

   I've planted the story. Do you think they'll bite?

9. (intransitive, transitive, of an insect) To sting.

   These mosquitoes are really biting today!

10. (intransitive) To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which causes such a sensation; to be pungent.

    It bites like pepper or mustard.

11. (transitive, sometimes figuratively) To cause sharp pain or damage to; to hurt or injure.

    Pepper bites the mouth.
12. (intransitive) To cause sharp pain; to produce anguish; to hurt or injure; to have the property of so doing.
13. (intransitive) To take or keep a firm hold.

    The anchor bites.

14. (transitive) To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to.

    The anchor bites the ground.

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

15. (intransitive, slang) To lack quality; to be worthy of derision; to suck.

    This music really bites.

16. (transitive, informal, vulgar) To perform oral sex on. Used in invective.

    You don't like that I sat on your car? Bite me.

17. (intransitive, African-American Vernacular, slang) To plagiarize, to imitate.

    He always be biting my moves.

18. (obsolete) To deceive or defraud; to take in.

Hyponyms

• bite down

Derived terms

• backbite
• biter
• biting

Related terms

Translations

Noun

bite (plural bites)

1. The act of biting.

   • I have known a very good fisher angle diligently four or six hours in a day, for three or four days together, for a River Carp, and not have a bite.

2. The wound left behind after having been bitten.

   That snake bite really hurts!

3. The swelling of one's skin caused by an insect's mouthparts or sting.

   After just one night in the jungle I was covered with mosquito bites.

4. A piece of food of a size that would be produced by biting; a mouthful.

   There were only a few bites left on the plate.

5. (slang) Something unpleasant.

   That's really a bite!

6. (slang) An act of plagiarism.

   That song is a bite of my song!

7. A small meal or snack.

   I'll have a quick bite to quiet my stomach until dinner.

8. (figuratively) aggression
9. 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.
10. (colloquial, dated) A cheat; a trick; a fraud.
    • 1725, Thomas Gordon, The Humorist

      The baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite, by deceiving and overreaching.

11. (colloquial, dated, slang) A sharper; one who cheats.
    • 1751, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, vol. IV, ch. 106:

      [I]t was conjectured, that Peregrine was a bite from the beginning, who had found credit on account of his effrontery and appearance, and imposed himself upon the town as a young gentleman of fortune.

12. (printing) 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.
13. (slang) A cut, a proportion of profits; an amount of money.
    • 1951, William S. Burroughs, in Harris (ed.), Letters 1945–59, Penguin 2009, p. 92:

      I know three Americans who are running a bar. The cops come in all the time for a bite.

Synonyms

• (act of biting):
• (wound left behind after having been bitten):
• (swelling caused by an insect's mouthparts or sting): sting
• (piece of food of a size that would be produced by biting): mouthful
• (slang: something unpleasant):
• (slang: act of plagiarism):
• (small meal or snack): snack
• (figuratively: aggression):

Derived terms

Related terms

• beetle
• bit

Translations

Anagrams

• EBIT, Ebit, ebit, tebi-

French

Alternative forms

• bitte

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bit/

Noun

bite f (plural bites)

1. (slang, vulgar) knob, cock, dick

Derived terms

• penser avec sa bite
• petite bite
• teub

Further reading

• “bite” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Garo

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

bite

1. fruit

Khumi Chin

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bi?.te?/

Adjective

bite

1. hot

Related terms

• bi-üngte

References

• K. E. Herr (2011) The phonological interpretation of minor syllables, applied to Lemi Chin?^[2], Payap University, page 74

Latvian

Etymology

From Proto-Balto-Slavic *bit? (compare Lithuanian bit?), from Proto-Indo-European *b?ey-, *b??-. Cognate to English bee.

Noun

bite f (5th declension)

1. bee

Declension

Murui Huitoto

Etymology

From Proto-Huitoto-Ocaina *bí?te.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?bi.t?]
• Hyphenation: bi?te

Verb

bite

1. (intransitive) to come

Derived terms

References

• Shirley Burtch (1983) Diccionario Huitoto Murui (Tomo I) (Linguistica Peruana No. 20)?^[3] (in Spanish), Yarinacocha, Peru: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, page 36
• Katarzyna Izabela Wojtylak (2017) A grammar of Murui (Bue): a Witotoan language of Northwest Amazonia.?^[4], Townsville: James Cook University press (PhD thesis), page 76

Neapolitan

Noun

bite

1. plural of bita

North Frisian

Verb

bite

1. (Halligen), (Mooring) to bite

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Old Norse bíta, from Proto-Germanic *b?tan?, from Proto-Indo-European *b?eyd- (“to split”).

Verb

bite (present tense biter, past tense bet or beit, past participle bitt, present participle bitende)

1. to bite

Derived terms

• bite i gresset
• bitende (adjective)

Related terms

• bitt (noun)

References

• “bite” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Alternative forms

• bita (a infinitive)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /²bi?t?/

Etymology

From Old Norse bíta, from Proto-Germanic *b?tan?, from Proto-Indo-European *b?eyd- (“to split”). Akin to English bite.

Verb

bite (present tense bit, past tense beit, supine bite, past participle biten, present participle bitande, imperative bit)

1. to bite

References

• “bite” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *bitiz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bi.te/

Noun

bite m

1. bite

Descendants

• Middle English: bitte, bite (merged with bita)
  • Scots: bit
  • English: bit

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?i.t?/

Participle

bite

1. inflection of bity:
   1. neuter nominative/accusative/vocative singular
   2. nonvirile nominative/accusative/vocative plural

Turkish

Noun

bite

1. dative singular of bit

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian b?ta

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bit?/

Verb

bite

1. to bite

Inflection

Further reading

• “bite (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011