Bit

How to spell bit

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bit

What does bit mean?

1. nounA small piece, portion, or quantity of something.
2. verbPast tense of 'bite': used teeth to cut into something.
3. nounThe smallest unit of digital information, a single binary digit of value 0 or 1.
4. nounThe cutting or boring part fitted to a drill or similar tool.

Bit in a sentence

• noun

  She added a bit of salt to the simmering sauce.

• verb

  The nervous puppy bit the postman on the ankle.

• noun

  Each bit stores either a one or a zero in the computer's memory.

• noun

  He swapped the worn drill bit for a sharper one.

• noun

  There is still a bit of work left before the report is finished.

• verb

  She bit into the apple and found it was sour.

Where does bit come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word descends from the Old English bita, meaning literally 'a piece bitten off' or 'a morsel', and it is closely tied to the verb bitan, 'to bite'. Because a bit was originally what your teeth removed in one go, the noun naturally broadened to mean any small fragment or modest amount of something. A separate but related Old English form, bite, gave the sense of the metal mouthpiece placed in a horse's mouth (the thing it bites on) and later the cutting edge of a tool such as a drill, where the tool 'bites' into the material. In the twentieth century the word gained a wholly technical life when 'bit' was coined in 1948 as a blend of 'binary digit' for the smallest unit of computer information. The short, blunt spelling rarely trips adults up, since the word is simply the bare Germanic root with no silent letters or doubled consonants to negotiate.

How the word is built

• bit (single morpheme; from Old English bita 'a piece bitten off', related to bitan 'to bite')