you a lye with a grave face, and laughs at you for knowing him no better than to believe him.
1711. Spectator, No. 47. These gentlemen are commonly distinguished by the name of biters: a race of men that are perpetually employed in laughing at those mistakes which are of their own production.
1712. Spectator, No. 504. A biter is one who tells you a thing you have no reason to disbelieve in itself, and perhaps has given you, before he bit you, no reason to disbelieve it for his saying it; and if you give him credit, laughs in your face, and triumphs that he has deceived you.
1812. Coombe, Syntax, Picturesque, c. xix.
Pray have you travell'd so far north, To think we have so little wit, As by such biters to be bit?
2. (old.)—An amorous woman (sexually). Cf., Athanasian wench.
Bite the Ear, verbal phr. (thieves').—To borrow. Formerly, a term of endearment; to caress fondly. For synonyms, see Shins.
1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., xl., 502. He used to want to bite my ear (borrow) too often.
Bite the Thumb, verbal phr. (old).—To make a gesture of contempt, which was formerly regarded in the light of an insult. Nares says the thumb in the action represented a fig, and the whole was equivalent to 'a fig for you.' There are several gestures of this kind. That best known is probably taking a sight (q.v.). A similar gesture of contempt is used by the lower orders in France which, there is little doubt, is the 'biting the thumb' spoken of in Romeo and Juliet. The person using the gesture placed the nail of his thumb under the front teeth of the upper jaw, and then jerked the thumb forward, using at the same time an expression equivalent to 'I don't care that for you.' Another contemptuous action is placing the thumb between the closed fore and middle fingers; while according to Darwin's Expression of the Emotions, it appears that with the Dakota Indians of North America 'contempt is shown . . . conventionally by the hand being closed and held near the breast; then, as the fore arm is suddenly extended, the hand is opened and the fingers separated from each other. If the person at whose expense the sign is made is present, the hand is moved towards him and the head sometimes averted from him.' This sudden extension and opening of the hand perhaps indicates the dropping or throwing away a valueless object.
1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, i., 1. I will bite my thumb at them; which is a disgrace to them if they bear it.
1596. Lodge, Wit's Miserie. Behold next I see Contempt marching forth, giving me the fies, with his thombe in his mouth.
1638. Randolph, Muses' L. Glass, O. Pl., ix., 220. Dogs and pistols! To bite his thumb at me! Wear I a sword To see men bite their thumbs?
1678. Rules of Civility, transl. from French, p. 44. 'Tis no less disrespectful to bite the nail of your thumb, by way of scorn and disdain, and drawing your nail from between your teeth, to tell them you value not this what they can do.
Bite Up, subs. (tailors').—An unpleasant altercation.
Bit-Faker or Turner Out, subs. (thieves').—Coiner of bad money. [From bit, an old canting term for money, + faker, one who makes, or does.] Also
