unbitten
1
3.9
- adjective
- /ʌnˈbɪtən/
- Imagine what it's like being covered with tens of thousands of ticks, so many that there isn't one patch of unbitten skin.
Examples
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They sat quietly while he slowly ate the unbitten half of the sandwich.
-
Shining the light back along the path he had just followed, he saw where he had passed, miraculously unbitten, several other lazing snakes.
Fiction book (1993) -
For the bidden still unbitten finger of my mother.
Fiction book (2001) -
Unbitten.
-
He held out his unbitten hand and smiled.
Synonyms
1
5.3
Not broken into small pieces in the mouth before swallowing
How Bitten
Surface Forms
Morphology
unbitten = bitten (transparent) = un + bite + en
The adjective is directly formed by adding the negative prefix 'un-' to the past participle 'bitten', yielding 'not having been bitten', which is straightforward for learners.
Etymology
Unbitten is made of un- and bitten: un- means 'not' and the root bite means 'to cut or chew with teeth'. So, unbitten simply means 'not bitten', like something left untouched with no teeth marks.