bit

A small amount of something.

• There were bits of paper all over the floor.
• Does your leg still hurt? —Just a bit now.

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.

A rotary cutting tool, fitted to a drill, brace, or router, used to bore or drill holes or to remove material from the profile of the workpiece.

• router bit
• chamfering bit

Applied to a various small units of currency and coins.; A coin of a specified value.UKdated

• a threepenny bit

Applied to a various small units of currency and coins.; A unit of currency worth one eighth of a dollar, originally of a Spanish dollar but later also US or Canadian; also, a coin with this value, in particular the silver Spanish real.CanadaUShistorical

• A quarter is two bits.

Applied to a various small units of currency and coins.; A coin of a value similar but not equal to this, in particular the 'short bit', i.e. the ten-cent piece or dime.CanadaUSobsolete

• 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”.

Applied to a various small units of currency and coins.; A unit of currency and coin of the British West Indies worth six black dogs, originally equal to one-eighth of a Spanish dollar but later increasingly debased to one tenth, one eleventh, one twelfth, etc.historical

• 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.

Applied to a various small units of currency and coins.; A unit of currency of the Dutch West Indies in the early 20th century, worth one fifth of a cent.historical

Applied to a various small units of currency and coins.; Synonym of microbitcoin.

Specifically, a small amount of time.informal

• 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.

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

simple past of biteform-ofpast

• Your dog bit me!

past participle of bite, bittenarchaicform-ofinformal

• I've been bit by your dog!

Having been bitten.in-compoundsnot-comparable

• Even though he's bit, of course the zombies would still chase him.

A binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0.

The smallest unit of storage in a digital computer, consisting of a binary digit.

Any datum that may take on one of exactly two values.

• status bits on IRC
• permission bits in a file system

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 r

A microbitcoin, or a millionth of a bitcoin (0.000001 BTC).