Sports. in a tournament, the preferential status of a player or team not paired with a competitor in an early round and thus automatically advanced to play in the next round.
The top three seeded players received byes in the first round.
Golf. the holes of a stipulated course still unplayed after the match is finished.
Cricket. a run made on a ball not struck by the batsman.
something subsidiary, secondary, or out of the way.
sport the situation in which a player or team in an eliminatory contest wins a preliminary round by virtue of having no opponent
golf one or more holes of a stipulated course that are left unplayed after the match has been decided
cricket a run scored off a ball not struck by the batsman: allotted to the team as an extra and not to the individual batsman See also leg bye
something incidental or secondary
incidentally; by the way: used as a sentence connector
1710–20; variant spelling of by in its noun sense “side way”
If you say, "Bye!" you mean "farewell" or "so long." In other words, bye is a shorter way to say, "Goodbye." When you need a quick, informal way to bid your friend adieu, you'll probably say, "Bye!" It's shorthand for "goodbye," and when adults speak to babies and children, there's a tendency to double it: "Bye bye!" Another kind of bye is when an athlete moves directly into the next round of a competition without playing, a meaning that originated with the game of cricket.
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
‘Alaska moose-hunter can ‘rev up’ his hovercraft, court rules’ - AP AUDIBLE: K BYE “Beautiful day in Alabama! No, not now. War Eagle!”
From Fox News • Mar. 27, 2019
BYE SUCCESS: Kansas City coach Andy Reid always has his team ready to play after the bye.
From Washington Times • Oct. 14, 2016
BYE BYE MAN “He makes us do things,” a young man says.
From New York Times • Sep. 16, 2016
Because we feel so awkward saying: ‘I might not see you again – BYE!’
From The Guardian • Aug. 15, 2015
When the search results were presented, we glanced quickly at the article abstracts, ordered two articles to be sent us by mail and typed BYE.
From The Online World by De Presno, Odd
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
