Forms: 5–9 bye, 6– by; also 6 bi, 7 bie. [Attrib. use of prec. by- in adv., as in out patient, etc. Not separated by any clear line from by combinations: see BY- III. (In modern use the spelling bye seems to be preferred when the word is treated as an adj.)]
Generally. The opposite of main.
1. Situated to one side, as a door, or out of the way, as a place; running in a side direction, or out of the way, as a path. Also fig. See BY- in comb. 3 a, b, and BY-PATH, BY-WAY, etc.
c. 1330, etc. [see BY-WAY, BY-DOOR].
1485. Caxton, St. Wenefr., 2. By a bye dore of the chamber she wente oute.
1582. Bentley, Mon. Matrones, 39. Seeking manie crooked and biwaies.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, III. (Arb.), 73. Soom bye place of resting graunt vs.
1655. Gouge, Comm. Heb. x. 20. There are so many bie broad pathes.
1706. Lond. Gaz., No. 4259/4. The Man that is supposed to have robb’d … a bye Hackney Coach … upon the Forest of Sherwood.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), II. xli. 307. Nothing can be more bye and unfrequented.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 335. Hospitals erected … in bye places.
1830. Southey, in For. Rev. & Cont. Misc., V. 278. The mule preferred the high road to the bye one.
1880. W. Cornw. Gloss. (E. D. S.), Bye, lonely. Our house is rather bye.
2. fig. a. Away from the main purpose, occurring ‘by the way,’ incidental, casual; b. of secondary importance; c. privy, clandestine, secret, underhand; cf. BY- in comb. 3 c, d, 4, 5: often coupled with another epithet, as by and sinister, familiar and by, etc. See BY-MATTER, BY-WORD, etc.
c. 1050, etc. [see BY-WORD, BY-MATTER].
1562. Cooper, Answ. Priv. Masse (1850), 168. You have brought out of them all but a few bye sentences.
1599. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Hum., The Stage. Entertain this troop With some familiar and by-conference.
1632. D. Lupton, Lond. & Carbon., 105. He … hopes to haue … some by preferment.
1633. Fosbrooke, Warre or Confl., 9. Done either in hypocrisie or for some by and sinister respect.
a. 1652. Brome, Crt. Beggar, II. i. Have we spent all this while in by and idle talke?
1674. [Z. Cawdrey], Catholicon, 16. Those whom they have gained in their concealed and by-trade as Undertakers.
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., xxvi. (1819), 455. The bye effect may be unfavourable.
1842. Miall, Nonconf., II. 393. Some trivial bye consideration being unsound will vitiate our whole conclusion.
1849. Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, iv. § 3. 96. Far too serious a work to be undertaken in a bye way.
1857. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., I. ii. 5. A bye debate … arose on a motion by Lord Claud Hamilton.
