To beg; to borrow with little intention of repaying to extort. "I gotta bite my fence (dealer in stolen goods) for fall dough (expenses to fight an arrest) for the mouthpiece (lawyer)."

- american underworld dictionary - 1950

Note : Regarding graffiti culture it retains a similair meaning, to copy anothers style or etc. without giving credit or due permission.

To Iceberg Slim and his contemporaries, this was jivespeak for price. If your whore had a lot of bite, she could make you a very rich man.

Printmaker's slang for the period of time a plate is left etching in the acid.

eg. I just did a two-hour bite, and look at what it did to my plate! or I did three bites on that aquatint.

Bite (?), v. t. [imp. Bit (?); p. p. Bitten (?), Bit; p. pr. & vb. n. Biting.] [OE. biten, AS. bitan; akin to D. bijten, OS. bitan, OHG. bizan, G. beissen, Goth. beitan, Icel. bita, Sw. bita, Dan. bide, L. findere to cleave, Skr. bhid to cleave. &root;87. Cf. Fissure.]

1.

To seize with the teeth, so that they enter or nip the thing seized; to lacerate, crush, or wound with the teeth; as, to bite an apple; to bite a crust; the dog bit a man.

Such smiling rogues as these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain.
Shak.

2.

To puncture, abrade, or sting with an organ (of some insects) used in taking food.

3.

To cause sharp pain, or smarting, to; to hurt or injure, in a literal or a figurative sense; as, pepper bites the mouth.

"Frosts do bite the meads."

Shak.

4.

To cheat; to trick; to take in.

[Colloq.]

Pope.

5.

To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to; as, the anchor bites the ground.

The last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, . . . it turned and turned with nothing to bite.
Dickens.

To bite the dust, To bite the ground, to fall in the agonies of death; as, he made his enemy bite the dust. -- To bite in Etching, to corrode or eat into metallic plates by means of an acid. -- To bite the thumb at (any one), formerly a mark of contempt, designed to provoke a quarrel; to defy. "Do you bite your thumb at us ?" Shak. -- To bite the tongue, to keep silence. Shak.

© Webster 1913.


Bite (?), v. i.

1.

To seize something forcibly with the teeth; to wound with the teeth; to have the habit of so doing; as, does the dog bite?

2.

To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which causes such a sensation; to be pungent; as, it bites like pepper or mustard.

3.

To cause sharp pain; to produce anguish; to hurt or injure; to have the property of so doing.

At the last it [wine] biteth like serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
Prov. xxiii. 32.

4.

To take a bait into the mouth, as a fish does; hence, to take a tempting offer.

5.

To take or keep a firm hold; as, the anchor bites.

© Webster 1913.


Bite, n. [OE. bite, bit, bitt, AS. bite bite, fr. bitan to bite, akin to Icel. bit, OS. biti, G. biss. See Bite, v., and cf. Bit.]

1.

The act of seizing with the teeth or mouth; the act of wounding or separating with the teeth or mouth; a seizure with the teeth or mouth, as of a bait; as, to give anything a hard bite.

I have known a very good fisher angle diligently four or six hours for a river carp, and not have a bite.
Walton.

2.

The act of puncturing or abrading with an organ for taking food, as is done by some insects.

3.

The wound made by biting; as, the pain of a dog's or snake's bite; the bite of a mosquito.

4.

A morsel; as much as is taken at once by biting.

5.

The hold which the short end of a lever has upon the thing to be lifted, or the hold which one part of a machine has upon another.

6.

A cheat; a trick; a fraud.

[Colloq.]

The baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite, by deceiving and overreaching.
Humorist.

7.

A sharper; one who cheats.

[Slang]

Johnson.

8. Print.

A blank on the edge or corner of a page, owing to a portion of the frisket, or something else, intervening between the type and paper.

© Webster 1913.

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