bight
(baɪt)
Also 4 byȝt, 5 bycht, 6 byght, 7 beight, 7–9 bite.
[OE. byht bend, masc., corresp. to MLG. bucht (whence mod.G. bucht ‘bay, bight,’ mod.Du. bocht, also Da., Sw. bugt):—OTeut. *buhti-z, f. būgan to bow. OE. byht ‘bend’ appears to occur in Cod. Dipl. 538 and App. 308. It is to be distinguished from the poetic byht abode, corresp. to ON. bygð, from byggja to dwell, inhabit. See also bought n.]
1. A bending or bend; esp. an angle, hollow, or fork in the human or animal body; a corner.
| ? 967 Cod. Dipl. 538 (Bosw.), Andlang norþᵹeardes ðæt hit cymþ in ðone byht. c 1340 Gaw. & Gr. Knt. 1349 Bi þe byȝt al of þe þyȝes. c 1400 Rel. Ant. I. 190 In the byȝt of the harme. 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. §132 Dresse the wodde and bowe it clene and cutte it at euery byghte. 1674 Ray N.C. Words., Beight of the Elbow: Bending of the Elbow. Cheshire. 1721 Bailey, Bight [of a Horse] is the inward bent of the Chambrel: also the bent of the Knees in the Fore-legs. [So in subseq. Dicts.] |
2. esp. The loop of a rope, as distinguished from its ends; the part between the ends.
| 1622 R. Hawkins Voy. S. Sea (1847) 132 With our capsten [we] stretched the two byghtes. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789), Bight, the double part of a rope when it is folded..as, her anchor hooked the bight of our cable. 1812 Examiner 9 Nov. 720/1 The bite of a whale-line having..caught his leg. 1833 Marryat P. Simple (1863) 242 To put the little beast into the bight of a rope, and tow him overboard. 1875 Buckland Log-bk. 290 Catch him round the neck with the bight of a rope. |
3. a. A bend or curve as a geographical feature, e.g. an indentation in a coast line, a corner or recess of a bay, a bend in a river, etc. Also, an indentation or bay in a mass of ice.
| 1481 in Ripon Ch. Acts 344 Sleningford Bygh. 1555 Eden Decades W. Ind. (Arb.) 381 In the byght of a bay. 1622 Hawkins Voy. S. Sea (1847) 180 We found presently in the westerne bight of the bay a deepe river. 1725 De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 146 In the very bite or nook of the bay there was a great inlet of water. 1818 W. Scoresby in Memoirs Wernerian Nat. Hist. Soc. II. 266 A bight signifies a bay or sinuosity, on the border of any large mass or body of ice. 1852 Conybeare & H. St. Paul (1862) I. v. 135 The town was situated on a bight of the coast. 1876 Morris Sigurd ii. 165 The bight of the swirling river. Ibid. iii. 326 Far off in a bight of the mountains. 1956 Armstrong & Roberts Illustr. Ice Gloss. 5 Bight, an extensive crescent-shaped indentation in the ice-edge, formed either by wind or current. |
b. transf. and fig.
| 1851 Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. I. 30 Bights and bends in the great stream of Time. 1878 Masque Poets 121 Larded with talk and tallow In the bight of the afternoon. |
4. The space between two headlands, a bay, generally a shallow or slightly-receding bay; spec. in the Bights of Benin and Biafra, and the Australian Bight; also transf. a bay-like segment.
| 1555 Eden Decades W. Ind. (Arb.) 380 There is a byght or bay as thowgh it were a harborowe. 1725 De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 194 We ran boldly into the bay, and came to an anchor in that which they call the Bite, or little bay. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789), Bight, is also a small bay between two points of land. 1833 M. Scott Tom Cringle xvii. (1859) 447 The glowing mirror of the calm bight. 1864 D. Mitchell Wet Days Edgew. 43, I see there is a bight of blue in the sky. 1878 K. Johnston Africa xi. (1884) §15 Fernando Po, near the head of the Bight of Biafra. 1879 Stevenson Trav. Cevennes 190, I spied a bight of meadow..in an angle of the river. |