bike
1 Americannoun
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a colony, nest, or swarm of wild bees, wasps, or hornets.
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a teeming crowd; swarm of people.
noun
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informal short for bicycle motorcycle
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slang away you go
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slang to lose one's self-control
noun
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bikesimple
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bikessimple
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have bikedperfect
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has bikedperfect
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am bikingprogressive
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are bikingprogressive
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is bikingprogressive
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have been bikingperfect progressive
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has been bikingperfect progressive
Past
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bikedsimple
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had bikedperfect
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was bikingprogressive
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were bikingprogressive
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had been bikingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bike1
1880–85, alteration of bicycle
Origin of bike2
1250–1300; Middle English, equivalent to *bi bee (< Old Norse bȳ bee 1 ) + *yeke, Old English gēoc help, safety
Explanation
A bike is a pedal-powered two-wheeled vehicle. If you don't have time to walk to work, you might decide to ride your bike instead. Bike is shorthand for a bicycle or a motorbike. A bike enthusiast might keep a bike rack on her car and a bike helmet in her trunk at all times. Bike is also a verb, so you could say: "I'll bike over to the movie theater — meet you there in fifteen minutes!" This word, as a nickname for bicycle, first appeared in American English in 1882. It came to mean "motorcycle" about 50 years later.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“I would like to see more effort to find a resolution that maintains the existing traffic lanes while supporting protected bike lanes.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
Taylor has still not been able to get his bike fixed and ride it again.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
“Hey, come here, piggy piggy, come here, baby,” he said in one TikTok video, his bike brakes squealing as he reverses direction to catch up with the pink, fuzzy fugitive.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026
And Perkins said his summer trips can cost around $1 million, though one of his favorite activities, a bike tour, costs almost nothing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
I am so not doing the bus, so I bike all the way across town to the school.
From "Wayward Creatures" by Dayna Lorentz
He says the quietness of the electric bikes combined with the anti-social way they are ridden is dangerous.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
Some friendly advice to visitors to New York City: Look both ways when walking and then look again—especially for bikes and e-bikes racing on roads, bike lanes and even sidewalks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
From my perch I see thousands of revelers pour from the tram, cars that magically found a parking spot, bikes, and buses.
From Salon ● Aug. 11, 2026
More recent numbers could be higher since high fuel prices have motivated many to use transit, bikes, e-bikes and scooters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Most days, however, we rode our bikes as far away from home as we could get, a flighty brood of the tiny butterflies straggling behind us.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
A few weeks ago, I biked to meet a source for coffee, since my Android phone’s AccuWeather widget had seemingly projected a low, low chance of precipitation in the area.
From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2026
I was moving without my car, so I would naturally become someone who walked, biked and took the train more.
From Salon ● Aug. 4, 2026
We hiked, biked, relaxed in the spa sauna and sampled the signature Bled cream cake.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
Before they had kids, McBride and his wife biked 6,500 miles — McBride using a special, hand-cranked cycle — from Portland, Ore., to the southern tip of Argentina.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 15, 2026
I waited in the shadows until he biked around the corner with the rest of the pack, and then I reached up to wipe off the bird poop.
From "Okay for Now" by Gary D. Schmidt
The cycling programme, which previously included mountain biking and road races, will be confined to the track.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
That means easy access to excellent hiking, mountain biking and guided fly-fishing excursions on sought-after rivers and streams, including the Madison and Gallatin rivers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
“Other features include a large laundry room and a direct access private garage,” the listing notes, adding that the property also features “easy access to world class mountain biking and hiking trails.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 7, 2026
They wander among the houses -- painted mostly in shades of white, yellow or brown -- and go biking or hiking in the surrounding hills of central Slovakia.
From Barron's ● Jul. 3, 2026
He’d picked up biking a couple of years earlier, not by virtue of its popularity, but out of necessity.
From "Anger Is a Gift" by Mark Oshiro
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.
