bit

Etymology 1

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. cognates Cognate with West Frisian bit, Saterland Frisian Bit, Dutch bit, German Low German Beet, Biet, German Biss and Bissen, Danish bid, Swedish bit, Icelandic biti.

noun

1. 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. A rotary cutting tool fitted to a drill, used to bore holes.
3. (dated, Britain) A coin of a specified value.
   a threepenny bit
4. (obsolete, Canada) A ten-cent piece, dime.
   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". 1941, Emily Carr, chapter 10, in Klee Wyck
5. (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.
   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. 1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 6, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I
6. (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. 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. (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. (in the plural, informal, sports) Fractions of a second.
   The 400 metres race was won in 47 seconds and bits.
10. A portion of something.
    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. 2013 July-August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist
11. Somewhat; something, but not very great; also used like jot and whit to express the smallest degree. See also a bit.
    Am I bored? Not a bit of it!
    T. Hook My young companion was a bit of a poet.
12. (slang) A prison sentence, especially a short one.
    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 1904, The Anamosa prison press, volume 7, Iowa. Colony of Detention at Anamosa
    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. 1916, Thomas Mott Osborne. Warden, Sing Sing Prison, N. Y., “Prison Reform”, in The Journal of sociologic medicine, volume 17, page 407
    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. 1994, Odie Hawkins, Lost Angeles, page 158
    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. 2001, Andrew H. Vachss, Pain management
13. 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.
14. Short for bit part.
    She acted her bit in the opening scene.
15. The part of a key which enters the lock and acts upon the bolt and tumblers.
16. The cutting iron of a plane.
17. The bevelled front edge of an axehead along which the cutting edge runs.
18. (BDSM) A gag of a style similar to a bridle.
19. (MLE) A gun.
    JIMMY: I need to get my hands on some bits. If you’re still in the business. RONNIE (played by Nick Nevern): Oi! TROJAN (played by Jean-Paul Van Cauwelaert): Ronnie. {…} TROJAN: Now that is a SIG Sauer P226. 2013-12-23, Stephen Reynolds, 46:53 from the start, in Stephen Reynolds, director, Vendetta (film), spoken by Jimmy Vickers (Danny Dyer)

verb

1. (transitive) To put a bridle upon; to put the bit in the mouth of (a horse).

Etymology 2

See bite

verb

1. simple past of bite
   Your dog bit me!
2. (informal in US, archaic in UK) past participle of bite, bitten
   I have been bit by your dog!

adj

1. (chiefly in combination) Having been bitten.
   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 1984 July, Field & Stream, volume 89, number 3, page 24
   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 1992, Robert Lewis Taylor, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters
   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 1998, Adele Griffin, Rainy Season, page 121

Etymology 3

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

1. (mathematics, computing) A binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0.
2. (computing) The smallest unit of storage in a digital computer, consisting of a binary digit.
3. (information theory, cryptography) Any datum that may take on one of exactly two values.
   status bits on IRC
   permission bits in a file system
4. (information theory) A unit of measure for information entropy.
   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. 2011-05-17, Lisa Grossman, “Entropy Is Universal Rule of Language”, in Wired Science, retrieved 2012-09-26
5. A microbitcoin, or a millionth of a bitcoin (0.000001 BTC).