- present participle of bite.
adjective
-
piercing; keen
a biting wind
-
sarcastic; incisive
a biting comment
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of biting
First recorded in 1250–1300, biting is from the Middle English word bitynge. See bite, -ing 2
Explanation
Anything biting is sharp and painful, like the biting wind off that rolls off a frozen lake on a blustery day. A biting dog has the tendency, literally, to bite with its sharp teeth. A more common, figurative way to use this adjective is to mean either "painfully cold" or "cruel." So there's the biting cold of January in Minnesota, but there's also the biting remark of someone whose words are just as agonizing.
Vocabulary lists containing biting
Chill Out! Synonyms for "Cold"
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List 3
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Cold
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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.
The animal has red eyes and a short proboscis equipped with claws that help it grab food before biting.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 25, 2026
To distract the dog from biting them, they said, they fed it cereal they’d taken from a neighboring house where Yakeschi’s aunt lived.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
You can cat-proof them by wrapping them in no-chew, bitter-tasting bandages, which veterinary clinics use to prevent animals from biting them off.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
"I was so tired and there were so many of them and I wanted to have a complete meltdown and just cry, but I couldn't because if I stopped moving, they started biting me," she says.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
“And about Edie,” Mom says, then stops, biting her lip.
From "How to Disappear Completely" by Ali Standish
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.
