to bite off
12
2.1
- phrasal verb
- /baɪt ɔf/
:
morder un trozo
- He bit off a large piece of steak and quickly swallowed it.
- bite off a piece
- bite off a chunk
- bite off a head
You are swimming in a sea with a shark and when it's hungry it's going to bite off your leg.
- You are swimming in a sea with a shark and when it's hungry it's going to bite off your leg.
- And Ahab wants to get him because, because a number of years earlier, he had an encounter with Moby Dick where Moby Dick bit off his leg, and he survived.
Examples
-
Jamie inwardly worried that they were biting off more than they could chew.
Fiction book (1999) -
He bit off my nose!
-
Not only that one, but he bit off the top of that one too.
-
One of those things tried to grab me ... ... and I bit off one of his fingers.
-
I think he bit off his tongue.
-
"You want to be careful how you talk to me," he ground out, biting off each word.
Fiction book (1999) -
My mother always says that sooner or later, bullies bite off more than they can chew.
Fiction book (1997) -
Basil calmly takes out a cigar and bites off the tip.
Fiction book (1999) -
"Boys will be boys," she said, biting off a thread from her mending, "even if they are Consorts-in-Waiting."
Fiction book (1993) -
Only at the last minute, Frodo can't perform, so Gollum bites off his finger.
Synonyms
768
1.0
To use the teeth to cut, grip, or tear something
49
1.4
To eat a small piece of food or reduce something a little
3
3.5
To bite something until it comes off
Antonyms
How Forceful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to remove a piece from something using the teeth' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'bite' (to cut or grip with the teeth) with 'off' (indicating removal or separation). The separative sense of 'off' with action verbs is a regular, cross-linguistic compositional pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer this meaning.
Etymology
Bite off comes from a simple image: using your teeth to break a piece away from food or other things. So bite is the act and off shows a piece comes away, which is why it means 'to remove a piece with a sudden bite'.