/baɪt/
OriginFrom Middle English bight, biȝt, byȝt (also bought, bowght, bouȝt; see bought), from Old English byht (“bend, angle, corner; bay, bight”), from Proto-West Germanic *buhti, from Proto-Germanic *buhtiz (“bend, curve”), from Proto-Germanic *beuganą (“to bend, bow”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewgʰ- (“to bend”).
Cognates
Cognate with North Frisian boch, bocht, bucht (“bay, bight, gulf”), Saterland Frisian Bucht (“bay, bight, gulf”), West Frisian bocht (“bay, bight, gulf”), Dutch bocht (“bay, bight”), German Bucht (“bay, bight, gulf”), Icelandic bót (“bight, cove, small bay”); also Albanian butë (“soft, flabby”), Ukrainian бга́ти (bháty, “to crumple, twist”), Sanskrit भुज् (bhuj, “to bend, curve; to sweep”).
- A corner, bend, or angle; a hollow
“the bight of a horse's knee”
“the bight of an elbow”
“I spied a bight of meadow some way below the roadway in an angle of the river.”
- An area of sea lying between two promontories, larger than a bay, wider than a gulf.
- A bend or curve in a coastline, river, or other geographical feature.
- A curve in a rope.
“I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmica”
- transitiveTo arrange or fasten (a rope) in bights.
Formsbights(plural) · bights(present, singular, third-person) · bighting(participle, present) · bighted(participle, past) · bighted(past)