Biting

How to spell biting

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce biting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does biting mean?

1. adjectiveSo cold or harsh that it feels painfully sharp against the skin.
2. adjectiveSharply critical or sarcastic, intended to wound.
3. verbPresent participle of bite: gripping or cutting into something with the teeth.

Biting in a sentence

• adjective

  A biting wind swept across the empty car park.

• adjective

  Her biting review of the restaurant ruined its weekend bookings.

• verb

  The puppy kept biting the corner of the rug.

• adjective

  Commuters hurried home through the biting cold of January.

• adjective

  The manager's biting sarcasm made the meeting uncomfortable.

• verb

  She stopped biting her nails before the interview.

Where does biting come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is the present participle of the verb 'bite', which descends from the Old English bitan, meaning 'to cut into something with the teeth'. That verb belonged to a wide Germanic family, sharing an ancestor with the Dutch bijten and the German beissen, all reaching back to a Proto-Germanic root meaning to pierce or to cut. From the literal act of using teeth, English speakers extended the idea figuratively over the centuries, so that a 'biting' wind cuts into the skin and a 'biting' remark cuts into the feelings. The same root quietly survives in everyday relatives such as 'bit' (a piece bitten off) and 'bait' (something offered to be bitten). The spelling trap is simply the single 't': because the root vowel is long, the consonant is not doubled, giving biting rather than the mistaken 'bitting'.

How the word is built

• bit- (from Old English bitan: to cut into with the teeth)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)