3. An imposition; a piece of humbug; a ‘sell’ or ‘do.’ Cf., Bilk, Bam,
Bargain, and Sell, for synonyms. The sense runs through all stages,
from jocular hoaxing to downright swindling. Also in the sense of
disappointment, as in the old proverb ‘the biter bit.’ A man is bitten
when he burns his fingers meddling in matters, which, though promising
well, turn out failures.—See also Cross bite.
1711. Steele, Spectator, No. 156, ¶ 2. It was a common bite with
him, to lay Suspicions that he was favoured by a Lady’s Enemy.
1721. Amherst, Terræ Fil., ix., 43. Sharpers would not frequent
gaming-tables, if the men of fortune knew the bite.
1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. ix. ‘It’s all a bam, ma’am—all a
bamboozle and a bite, that affair of his illness.’
1860. Sat. Review, Ap. 14, 475, 2. That form of practical joking,
which in the time of ‘The Spectator,’ was known as a bite ... in
the popular slang of the day, is designated ‘a sell.’
1883. Daily News, Ap. 18, p. 5, col. 4. Lord Randolph Churchill, we
fear, has been making Mr. Gladstone the victim of what, in the
slang of Addison’s time, would have been called a bite, and what in
the slang of our own time is called a ‘sell.’
4. (old.)—A sharper; cheat; trickster. Cf., Bilk. See Rook for
synonyms.
1742. Fielding, Miss Lucy (1762), 176. Is this wench an idiot, or a
bite? Marry me, with a pox!
1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. xcviii. From which
circumstance it was conjectured that Peregrine was a bite from the
beginning, who had found credit on account of his effrontery and
appearance, and imposed himself upon the town as a young gentleman
of fortune.
1787. S. Jenyns, in Dodsley, III., 169. The fool would fain be
thought a bite.
5. (popular.)—Applied in a transferred sense to anybody or anything
suspected of being different to what it appears, but not necessarily in
a bad sense.
1846. Brackenridge, Mod. Chiv., 21. The jockeys suspected that the
horse was what they call a bite, that under the appearance of
leanness and stiffness, was concealed some hidden quality of
swiftness.