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bight

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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English

Etymology

From Middle English bight, biȝt, byȝt (also bought, bowght, bouȝt; see bought), from Old English byht (“bend, angle, corner; bay, bight”), from Proto-West Germanic *buhti, from Proto-Germanic *buhtiz (“bend, curve”), from Proto-Germanic *beuganą (“to bend, bow”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewgʰ- (“to bend”).

Cognates

Cognate with North Frisian boch, bocht, bucht (“bay, bight, gulf”), Saterland Frisian Bucht (“bay, bight, gulf”), West Frisian bocht (“bay, bight, gulf”), Dutch bocht (“bay, bight”), German Bucht (“bay, bight, gulf”), Icelandic bót (“bight, cove, small bay”); also Albanian butë (“soft, flabby”), Ukrainian бга́ти (bháty, “to crumple, twist”), Sanskrit भुज् (bhuj, “to bend, curve; to sweep”).

Pronunciation

Noun

bight (plural bights)

  1. A corner, bend, or angle; a hollow
    the bight of a horse's knee
    the bight of an elbow
  2. (geography) An area of sea lying between two promontories, larger than a bay, wider than a gulf.
  3. (geography) A bend or curve in a coastline, river, or other geographical feature.
  4. A curve in a rope.
    • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I:
      I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking.

Translations

Verb

bight (third-person singular simple present bights, present participle bighting, simple past and past participle bighted)

  1. (transitive) To arrange or fasten (a rope) in bights.

See also

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