To do a thing when the maggot bites, phr. (common), is to do it when
the fancy takes one; ‘at one’s own sweet will.’ When a person acts from
no apparent motive in external circumstances, he is said to have ‘a
maggot in his head,’ to have ‘a bee in his bonnet’; or, in French,
avoir des rats dans la tête; in Platt-Deutsch, to have a mouse-nest in
his head, the eccentric behaviour being attributed to the influence of
the internal irritation. Cf., Apartments to let.
Bite One’s Hips, verbal phr. (tailors’).—To regret a word or action.
Bite One’s Name In, verbal phr. (common).—To drink heavily; to tipple;
also to drink greedily.
Bite on the Bridle, verbal phr. (old).—To be pinched in circumstances;
to be reduced; in difficulties.
Biter, subs. (old).—1. A practical joker; a hoaxer; one who deceives; a
cheat and trickster. Cf., Bite. The term now only survives in the
proverbial expression, ‘the biter bit.’ For synonyms, see Rook.
1669. Nicker Nicked, in Hart. Misc. (ed. Park), ii., 108. [Biter is
given in a list of names of cheats and thieves’.]
1680. Cotton, Complete Gamester, in Singer’s Hist. Playing Cards
(1816), p. 333. Hectors, setters, gilts, pads, biters, etc., and
these may all pass under the general appellation of rooks.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 12. A biter, who is a dull fellow, that
tells 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?