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• bye
  bye

  noun

  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.
• bye-
  bye-

  variant of by-.

bye

¹ American  

[bahy] / baɪ /

noun

1. 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.

2. Golf. the holes of a stipulated course still unplayed after the match is finished.

3. Cricket. a run made on a ball not struck by the batsman.

4. something subsidiary, secondary, or out of the way.

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adjective

1. by.

idioms

1. by the bye, by the way; incidentally: Also by the by

   By the bye, how do you spell your name?

bye ² American  

[bahy] / baɪ /

interjection

1. goodbye.

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bye- ³ American  

1. variant of by-.

   bye-election.

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bye ¹ British  

/ baɪ /

noun

1. sport the situation in which a player or team in an eliminatory contest wins a preliminary round by virtue of having no opponent

2. golf one or more holes of a stipulated course that are left unplayed after the match has been decided

3. 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

4. something incidental or secondary

5. incidentally; by the way: used as a sentence connector

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bye ² British  

1. informal goodbye

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Etymology

Origin of bye

1710–20; variant spelling of by in its noun sense “side way”

Explanation

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.

Example Sentences

And ordinarily, the teams who finish 18th and 19th in the Premier League receive a bye into round two - with the rest of the top-flight teams who avoided relegation.

From BBC • May 28, 2026

As a seeded player, she would receive a first-round bye and therefore not have to play before Thursday.

From BBC • May 1, 2026

“We want Greenland. They don’t want to give it to us and I said, ‘OK, bye bye.’”

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 14, 2026

"They don't want to give it to us. And I said, 'bye, bye.'"

From Barron's • Apr. 6, 2026

“Look, we’ll talk about it later. Right now I’m gonna say bye to Flaca.”

From "We Were Here" by Matt De La Peña