bight

Etymology

From Middle English bight, biȝt, byȝt (also bought, bowght, bouȝt; see bought), from Old English byht (“bend, angle, corner; bay, bight”), from Proto-Germanic *buhtiz (“bend, curve”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰūgʰ- (“to bend”). Cognate with Scots bicht (“bight”), Dutch bocht (“bend, curve”), Low German Bucht (“bend, bay”), German Bucht (“bay, bight”), Danish bugt (“bay”), Icelandic bugða (“curve”), Albanian butë (“soft, flabby”).

noun

1. A corner, bend, or angle; a hollow
   the bight of a horse's knee
   the bight of an elbow
   I spied a bight of meadow some way below the roadway in an angle of the river. 1905, Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, page 166
2. An area of sea lying between two promontories, larger than a bay, wider than a gulf
3. (geography) A bend or curve in a coastline, river, or other geographical feature.
4. A curve in a rope

verb

1. (transitive) To arrange or fasten (a rope) in bights.