bye

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See also: Bye, byè, and 'bye

English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Variant form of by, from Old English bī (“being near”).

Noun[edit]

bye (plural byes)

  1. The position of a person or team in a tournament or competition who draws no opponent in a particular round so advances to the next round unopposed, or is awarded points for a win in a league table; also the phantom opponent of such a person or team.
    • 2020, Jerry Thornton, From Darkness to Dynasty:
      The Patriots were in the unique situation of having to play 16 straight games, then have their bye in week 17, whether they needed it or not.
    Craig's Crew plays the bye next week.
  2. (cricket) An extra scored when the batsmen take runs after the ball has passed the striker without hitting either the bat or the batsman.
  3. (obsolete) A thing not directly aimed at; a secondary or subsidiary object, course, path, undertaking, issue, etc.
    • 1655, Thomas Fuller, James Nichols, editor, The Church History of Britain, […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), new edition, London: […] [James Nichols] for Thomas Tegg and Son, […], published 1837, OCLC 913056315:
      The Synod of Dort in some points condemneth, upon the by, even the discipline of the Church of England.
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:bye.
  4. (Scotland) An unspecified way or place.
    • 1815, Sir Walter Scott, Guy Manneringv:
      Frank Kennedy will shew you the penalties in the act, and ye ken yoursell they used to put their run goods into the auld Place of Ellangowan up bye there.
    • 1880, W. Alexander, Johnny Gibb:
      This was lattin at me, ye ken, for inveetin the coachman an' the gamekeeper up bye.
    • 1894, David Storrar Meldrum, Margridel:
      No word of a new house-keeper down bye, Wull?
    • 1927, John Buchan, Witch Wood:
      There's a friend of yours up bye that would be blithe to see you—up the rig from the auld aik on the road to the Greenshiel.
  5. (card games) A pass.
Derived terms[edit]

Adjective[edit]

bye (comparative more bye, superlative most bye)

  1. Out of the way; remote.
    • 1765, The Parasite, page 194:
      At length having gained a very bye Alley, where he thought he might enter into a Conference unnoticed by any who knew him.
    • 1797, John Henry Prince, Original letters and essays on moral and entertaining subjects, page 85:
      I left Colchester at one o'clock, and had a very agreeable ride from thence to my Uncle's– It is a very bye road , I did not meet a carriage or horse all the way, which is I believe eleven or twelve miles, but however I turned this to good advantage, and availed myself of the rural ride and variegated prospects, which assisted me to meditate.
    • 2013, Captain Alexander Smith, ‎Arthur L. Hayward, A Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts and Cheats of Both Sexes, page 69:
      So riding towards Cheshunt in the same county, he put into a bye sort of a house, a little out of the road, in which, finding only a poor old woman bitterly weeping, and asking the reason of shedding those tears, she told him, that she was a poor widow and being somewhat indebted for rent to her landlord whe expected him every minute to come and seize what few goods she had, which would be her utter ruin.
  2. Secondary; supplementary.
    • 1894, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, Eight Chapters on the History of Work and Wages, page 138:
      But the two labourers of whom I am speaking had their allowances, lived on their fixed wages with the profits of their bye labour, one being pig-killer to the village, and, therefore, always busy from Michaelmas to Lady-day, at a shilling a pig, and the offal, on which his family subsisted, wit h the produce of their small curtilage, for half the year.
    • 2012, Eileen Power, ‎Michael Moïssey Postan, Medieval Women, page 45:
      As we shall see presently the wife of a craftsman almost always worked as her husband's assistant in his trade, or if not, she often eked out the family income by some such bye industry as brewing and spinning; sometimes she even practised a separate trade as a femme sole.
    • 2018, Victor D Lippit, Revival: Land Reform and Economic Development in China (1975), page 54:
      It is the custom in some provinces to pay only according to the basic crops produced, but in others the share is calculated out of the total produce of the farm, both bye and main products.

Etymology 2[edit]

Shortened form of goodbye.

Interjection[edit]

bye

  1. (colloquial) Goodbye.
Derived terms[edit]
Descendants[edit]
  • → Afrikaans: baai
  • → Greenlandic: baj
  • → Faroese: bei
  • → Icelandic: bæ
Translations[edit]
short for goodbye — See also translations at goodbye

Etymology 3[edit]

Noun[edit]

bye (plural byes)

  1. A male person.
    • 1883, Rose Garfield Clemens, “Pat and the Pig”, in Ballou's Dollar Monthly Magazine, volume 58, page 383:
      "So what shall I do, now, Patric? Can you think of any plan? "Bedad!" said Pat , as he scratched his head , “ I'm the very bye that can."
    • 1887, “Pat's Love Episode”, in Parry's Monthly Magazine, volume 3, page 252:
      'Och,' sez I, 'there's many a bye that's lonely livin' rite wid his friends an' naybors. Sure an' I'm lonesome mesilf.'
    • 1903, Our Young People - Volume 12, page 51:
      There a bye has his hand toorn off, and there a bye loses his eyesight complately, and over yan a bye has his joogular vein torn wid a whistlin' boom, and forninst that is the bye who thinks his gun isn't loaded and kills his little sisther.
    • 1907, International Molders' and Foundry Workers' Journal, page 545:
      In thim days the bye who wint to work in the foundhry to learn the thrade, in goin' into the shop in the morning would meet a big, ruffneck boss wit his blue faunel shirt on and his schleeves rolled up to his ilbows, who could show him the mishtakes he made the day befoor, if he made any.
    • 1920, Marjorie Benton Cooke, The Girl who Lived in the Woods, page 184:
      I know a nice bye who's goin' to git two cookies fer thim worrds.
    • 2012, Robert Craig Brown, Illustrated History of Canada, page 224:
      Hardy, weatherbeaten, intimately familiar with the winds and tides of his local shore, capable of turning his hand to many things, squeezing a hard living from the treacherous sea—a figure rendered familiar by the words “Ise the bye who builds the boat/ And ise the bye that sails her/ Ise the bye who catches the fish/ And takes them home to Liza."

Etymology 4[edit]

Alternative forms.

Preposition[edit]

bye

  1. Obsolete spelling of by

Noun[edit]

bye

  1. Obsolete spelling of bee

See also[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Afrikaans[edit]

Noun[edit]

bye

  1. plural of by

French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English bye.

Pronunciation[edit]

Interjection[edit]

bye !

  1. bye
    Allez bye ! À la revoyure.

Mauritian Creole[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From English bye.

Pronunciation[edit]

Interjection[edit]

bye

  1. bye, goodbye

Synonyms[edit]

Middle English[edit]

Noun[edit]

bye

  1. A ring or torque; a bracelet.
    • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book VII:
      And Kynge Arthure gaff hir a ryche bye of golde; and so she departed.

Norwegian Bokmål[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

bye f or m (definite singular bya or byen, indefinite plural byer, definite plural byene)

  1. form removed with the spelling reform of 2005; superseded by byge

Norwegian Nynorsk[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Dutch bui.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

bye f (definite singular bya, indefinite plural byer, definite plural byene)

  1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

Derived terms[edit]

References[edit]

Yola[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English boye, from Old English *bōia, from Proto-Germanic *bōjô.

Noun[edit]

bye (plural bys)

  1. boy

References[edit]

  • Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 29
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