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.
It is about winning the National League West, with one of the two best records in the league, thus ensuring a first-round bye.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2026
Whitehouse added: "Bye bye Ted old friend. He wasn't a dog; he was a species all of his own. He's gone to the great briefcase emporium in the sky. We will really miss you mate."
From BBC ● Apr. 30, 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
We just say bye and see you at school and slap hands and it’s just...normal.
From "Wayward Creatures" by Dayna Lorentz
Present: FLORRIE, ISABEL, MAY, LUCILLA, KATHLEEN, DORA, MARY, and some others, who have saved time for the bye- Lecture.
From The Ethics of the Dust by Ruskin, John
But from then on they worked together in England and Scotland organizing, speaking, heckling members of the government, campaigning at bye- elections; going to Holloway Prison together, where they joined the Englishwomen on hunger strike.
From Jailed for Freedom by Stevens, Doris
The two highest ranked teams will receive byes into single-match finals while the other four meet in single-match semi-finals.
From Barron's ● Nov. 16, 2025
Four byes from the final ball of the innings took England to 400.
From BBC ● May 29, 2025
Like in previous years, the top-seven teams from the previous season's Premier League were given byes to the third round.
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2024
Of the NL’s three division winners, only two will be granted first-round byes in the postseason and advance directly to the divisional round.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2024
The byes has been tellin' av me as yez learn 'em ter git on.
From The Angel of the Gila: A Tale of Arizona by Marsland, Cora
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.
