Synonyms for biting
Antonyms for biting
EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR BITING
"You shall hear from me, sir," said the officer, biting his lips.
"Crooked as a dog's hind legs," snarled Lewis, biting viciously at his cigar.
The biting finger of agony had drawn lines upon his haggard brow.
She stood there in the biting wind, while he uncovered the horse and drove away.
He hesitated, biting his lip and plucking absently the tangles from the forelock of his horse.
"God Himself can't do anything for me," she said, biting the edge of her veil.
Robin Hood looked up and he looked down, biting his nether lip.
If he had only been able to withdraw the more rabid of his biting remarks about the Fathers.
They're so mad because they can't get at us that they're biting the mast.
Mr. Vallance leaned back in the cab, biting his nails savagely, and thinking.
WORD ORIGIN
Old English bitan (class I strong verb; past tense bat, past participle biten), from Proto-Germanic *bitan (cf. Old Saxon bitan, Old Norse and Old Frisian bita, Middle Dutch biten, Dutch bijten, German beissen, Gothic beitan "to bite"), from PIE root *bheid- "to split, crack" (see fissure).
To bite the bullet is said to be 1700s military slang, from old medical custom of having the patient bite a lead bullet during an operation to divert attention from pain and reduce screaming. Figurative use from 1891; the custom itself attested from 1840s. To bite (one's) tongue "refrain from speaking" is 1590s. To bite the dust "die" is 1750 (Latin had the same image; cf. Virgil: procubuit moriens et humum semel ore momordit). To bite off more than one can chew (c.1880) is U.S. slang, from plug tobacco.