The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Bite \Bite\, v. i.
   1. To seize something forcibly with the teeth; to wound with
      the teeth; to have the habit of so doing; as, does the dog
      bite?
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which
      causes such a sensation; to be pungent; as, it bites like
      pepper or mustard.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. To cause sharp pain; to produce anguish; to hurt or
      injure; to have the property of so doing.
      [1913 Webster]

            At the last it [wine] biteth like serpent, and
            stingeth like an adder.               --Prov. xxiii.
                                                  32.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. To take a bait into the mouth, as a fish does; hence, to
      take a tempting offer.
      [1913 Webster]

   5. To take or keep a firm hold; as, the anchor bites.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Bite \Bite\ (b[imac]t), v. t. [imp. Bit (b[i^]t); p. p.
   Bitten (b[i^]t"t'n), Bit; p. pr. & vb. n. Biting.] [OE.
   biten, AS. b[imac]tan; akin to D. bijten, OS. b[imac]tan,
   OHG. b[imac]zan, G. beissen, Goth. beitan, Icel. b[imac]ta,
   Sw. bita, Dan. bide, L. findere to cleave, Skr. bhid to
   cleave. [root]87. Cf. Fissure.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. To seize with the teeth, so that they enter or nip the
      thing seized; to lacerate, crush, or wound with the teeth;
      as, to bite an apple; to bite a crust; the dog bit a man.
      [1913 Webster]

            Such smiling rogues as these,
            Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain. --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To puncture, abrade, or sting with an organ (of some
      insects) used in taking food.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. To cause sharp pain, or smarting, to; to hurt or injure,
      in a literal or a figurative sense; as, pepper bites the
      mouth. "Frosts do bite the meads." --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. To cheat; to trick; to take in. [Colloq.] --Pope.
      [1913 Webster]

   5. To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to; as, the
      anchor bites the ground.
      [1913 Webster]

            The last screw of the rack having been turned so
            often that its purchase crumbled, . . . it turned
            and turned with nothing to bite.      --Dickens.
      [1913 Webster]

   To bite the dust, To bite the ground, to fall in the
      agonies of death; as, he made his enemy bite the dust.

   To bite in (Etching), to corrode or eat into metallic
      plates by means of an acid.

   To bite the thumb at (any one), formerly a mark of
      contempt, designed to provoke a quarrel; to defy. "Do you
      bite your thumb at us?" --Shak.

   To bite the tongue, to keep silence. --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Bite \Bite\, n. [OE. bite, bit, bitt, AS. bite bite, fr.
   b[imac]tan to bite, akin to Icel. bit, OS. biti, G. biss. See
   Bite, v., and cf. Bit.]
   1. The act of seizing with the teeth or mouth; the act of
      wounding or separating with the teeth or mouth; a seizure
      with the teeth or mouth, as of a bait; as, to give
      anything a hard bite.
      [1913 Webster]

            I have known a very good fisher angle diligently
            four or six hours for a river carp, and not have a
            bite.                                 --Walton.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. The act of puncturing or abrading with an organ for taking
      food, as is done by some insects.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. The wound made by biting; as, the pain of a dog's or
      snake's bite; the bite of a mosquito.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. A morsel; as much as is taken at once by biting.
      [1913 Webster]

   5. The hold which the short end of a lever has upon the thing
      to be lifted, or the hold which one part of a machine has
      upon another.
      [1913 Webster]

   6. A cheat; a trick; a fraud. [Colloq.]
      [1913 Webster]

            The baser methods of getting money by fraud and
            bite, by deceiving and overreaching.  --Humorist.
      [1913 Webster]

   7. A sharper; one who cheats. [Slang] --Johnson.
      [1913 Webster]

   8. (Print.) A blank on the edge or corner of a page, owing to
      a portion of the frisket, or something else, intervening
      between the type and paper.
      [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

bite
    n 1: a wound resulting from biting by an animal or a person
    2: a small amount of solid food; a mouthful; "all they had left
       was a bit of bread" [syn: morsel, bit, bite]
    3: a painful wound caused by the thrust of an insect's stinger
       into skin [syn: sting, bite, insect bite]
    4: a light informal meal [syn: bite, collation, snack]
    5: (angling) an instance of a fish taking the bait; "after
       fishing for an hour he still had not had a bite"
    6: wit having a sharp and caustic quality; "he commented with
       typical pungency"; "the bite of satire" [syn: pungency,
       bite]
    7: a strong odor or taste property; "the pungency of mustard";
       "the sulfurous bite of garlic"; "the sharpness of strange
       spices"; "the raciness of the wine" [syn: pungency, bite,
       sharpness, raciness]
    8: the act of gripping or chewing off with the teeth and jaws
       [syn: bite, chomp]
    9: a portion removed from the whole; "the government's weekly
       bite from my paycheck"
    v 1: to grip, cut off, or tear with or as if with the teeth or
         jaws; "Gunny invariably tried to bite her" [syn: bite,
         seize with teeth]
    2: cause a sharp or stinging pain or discomfort; "The sun burned
       his face" [syn: bite, sting, burn]
    3: penetrate or cut, as with a knife; "The fork bit into the
       surface"
    4: deliver a sting to; "A bee stung my arm yesterday" [syn:
       sting, bite, prick]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

327 Moby Thesaurus words for "bite":
   acerbity, acidity, acridity, acrimony, acuminate, acute pain,
   adhere to, afflict, agonize, ail, allotment, allowance, and sinker,
   astringency, auger, bait, be a sucker, be keen, be taken in,
   bear hug, benumb, big end, bigger half, bit, bite the tongue,
   bitingness, bitterness, bolus, bore, boring pain, briskness,
   bristle with, broach, budget, burn, causticity, chafe, champ,
   charley horse, chaw, chew, chew the cud, chew up, chill, chomp,
   chunk, clamp, clasp, cleave to, clench, clinch, cling, clinging,
   clip, clutch, collation, commission, contingent, convulse, corrode,
   countersink, cramp, cramps, crick, crucify, crunch, cud, cut,
   cuttingness, darting pain, deal, death grip, destiny, devour,
   distress, dividend, dole, drill, drive, eat, eat away, eat out,
   eat up, edge, effectiveness, embrace, empierce, end, equal share,
   erode, etch, excruciate, fall for, fate, fester, fierceness,
   firm hold, fix, foothold, footing, force, forcefulness, freeze,
   freeze to, fret, frost, frostbite, fulgurant pain, gall, ginger,
   girdle pain, give pain, gnash, gnaw, gnawing, go for, go through,
   gob, gobble up, gore, gouge, gouge out, grapple, grasp, grate,
   grind, grip, gripe, griping, gulp down, gum, guts, half, halver,
   hang on, hang on to, harrow, harshness, have an edge, helping,
   hitch, hold, hold fast, hold on, hold on to, hold tight, hole,
   honeycomb, hotness, hug, hurt, impale, impressiveness,
   incisiveness, inflame, inflict pain, interest, iron grip, irritate,
   jumping pain, keenness, keep hold of, kick, kill by inches, kink,
   lacerate, lance, lancinating pain, lap up, lick, light lunch,
   light meal, light repast, line, liveliness, lot, martyr, martyrize,
   masticate, measure, meed, mess, modicum, moiety, mordacity,
   mordancy, morsel, mouth, mouthful, mumble, munch, needle,
   nervosity, nervousness, never let go, nibble, nip, nippiness, nosh,
   numb, pain, pang, paroxysm, part, penetrate, pepperiness,
   percentage, perforate, piece, pierce, pinch, pink, poignancy,
   point, portion, power, prick, prolong the agony, proportion, punch,
   puncture, purchase, put to torture, quantum, quid, quota, raciness,
   rack, rake-off, rankle, rasp, ration, ream, ream out, refreshments,
   refrigerate, relish, riddle, rigor, roughness, rub, ruminate,
   run through, scour, scrap, scrunch, segment, seizure, severity,
   share, sharp pain, sharpness, shoot, shooting, shooting pain,
   sinew, sinewiness, sip, skewer, slice, small share, snack, snap,
   snappiness, spasm, spear, spice, spiciness, spike, spit,
   spot of lunch, stab, stabbing pain, stake, stick, stick to, sting,
   stitch, stock, strength, stridency, stringency, strong language,
   sup, swallow, swallow anything, swallow hook, swallow whole,
   swing at, take the bait, tang, tanginess, tap, tartness, taste,
   teeth, thrill, throes, tight grip, toehold, tooth, tormen, torment,
   torture, transfix, transpierce, trenchancy, trepan, trephine,
   tumble for, tweak, twinge, twist, twitch, vehemence, vigor,
   vigorousness, violence, virulence, vitality, wear away, wound,
   wrench, wring, zest, zestfulness, zip



The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

byte
bite

    /bi:t/ (B) A component in the machine data hierarchy
   larger than a bit and usually smaller than a word; now
   nearly always eight bits and the smallest addressable unit of
   storage.  A byte typically holds one character.

   A byte may be 9 bits on 36-bit computers.  Some older
   architectures used "byte" for quantities of 6 or 7 bits, and
   the PDP-10 and IBM 7030 supported "bytes" that were actually
   bit-fields of 1 to 36 (or 64) bits!  These usages are now
   obsolete, and even 9-bit bytes have become rare in the general
   trend toward power-of-2 word sizes.

   The term was coined by Werner Buchholz in 1956 during the
   early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer.  It was a
   mutation of the word "bite" intended to avoid confusion with
   "bit".  In 1962 he described it as "a group of bits used to
   encode a character, or the number of bits transmitted in
   parallel to and from input-output units".  The move to an
   8-bit byte happened in late 1956, and this size was later
   adopted and promulgated as a standard by the System/360
   operating system (announced April 1964).

   James S. Jones  adds:

   I am sure I read in a mid-1970's brochure by IBM that outlined
   the history of computers that BYTE was an acronym that stood
   for "Bit asYnchronous Transmission E..?" which related to
   width of the bus between the Stretch CPU and its CRT-memory
   (prior to Core).

   Terry Carr  says:

   In the early days IBM taught that a series of bits transferred
   together (like so many yoked oxen) formed a Binary Yoked
   Transfer Element (BYTE).

   [True origin?  First 8-bit byte architecture?]

   See also nibble, octet.

   [Jargon File]

   (2003-09-21)