ppl. a. [pa. pple. of BITE v.]
1. Cut into, pierced, or wounded with the teeth.
1613. Shaks., Hen. VIII., V. iv. 64. Youths that … fight for bitten Apples.
1789. J. O’Donnel in Med. Commun., II. 299. His face on the bitten side was … swelled.
2. fig. Infected, seized with a mania.
1847. L. Hunt, Men, Women, & B., II. vii. 89. Readers not bitten with the love of verse.
1873. Morley, Rousseau, II. 186. Readers of the Social Contract, and … bitten by its dogmatic temper.
3. Often combined with instrumental sbs., as frost-, hunger-, vice-bitten (-bit), etc.
1598. H. C., in Greenham’s Wks., To Rdr.
| The thirstie soule, that fainteth in the way, | |
| Or hunger-bit for heauenly foode doth long. |
1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 93. The leaves … before they are frost-bitten.
1754. Richardson, Grandison, VI. xxvii. 164. A man vice-bitten.
† 4. actively. Having bitten, biting. (Used with qualifying adverb: cf. fair-spoken.) Obs. rare.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Countr. Farm, 674. They [Greyhounds] are of all dogs the sorest bitten and least amased with any crueltie in their enemie.
