bight
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
From Middle English bight, biȝt, byȝt (also bought, bowght, bouȝt, see bought), from Old English byht (“bend, angle, corner; bay, bight”), from Proto-Germanic *buhtiz (“bend, curve”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰūgʰ- (“to bend”). Cognate with Scots bicht (“bight”), Dutch bocht (“bend, curve”), Low German bucht (“bend, bay”), German Bucht (“bay, bight”), Danish bugt (“bay”), Icelandic bugða (“curve”), Albanian butë (“soft, flabby”) . Compare bought.
Pronunciation [edit]
Noun [edit]
bight (plural bights)
- A corner, bend, or angle; a hollow; as, 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. (Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes)
- An area of sea lying between two promontories; larger than a bay, wider than a gulf
- A curve in a rope
- 1899, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, section 1
- 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, rhythmically clinking.
- 1899, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, section 1
Related terms [edit]
Translations [edit]
bend
large bay
curve
