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May 22, 2015 · To bite the bullet is said to be 1700s military slang, from old medical custom of having the patient bite a lead bullet during an operation to divert attention from pain and reduce screaming. Figurative use from 1891; the custom itself attested from 1840s. Share. Improve this answer. Follow.
Jul 22, 2023 · Defenders of the view can try to show that it doesn't actually entail the alleged logical consequence, or they can “bite the bullet” and sorrowfully admit that the view really does entail the outrageous logical consequence while at the same time maintaining that the view (despite its regrettably outrageous implications) should be accepted ...
Oct 26, 2016 · 1. To bite the bullet means to decide to do something difficult or unpleasant that one has been putting off or hesitating over, according to Google. I'm not sure that I can use it when I was supposed to clean the house but I haven't done until down to the wire. For example, "Now, I need to bite the bullet and clean the house."
Dec 20, 2019 · The story is that, back in the days when your buddy rather than an ER surgeon would remove a bullet in your arm, you'd be handed a bare bullet (this was before cartridges, so it was a chunk of bare lead) and told to bite it, to help you deal with the pain.
Dec 15, 2014 · The mental distinction between the essential point being made and the bullet • marking that essential point is so subtle that all three discrete entities can be independently referred to as a bullet point: the marker • is a bullet point in the sense of dot as in midpoint, bullet describing that mark with a first documented use of 1950.
Oct 21, 2016 · If rephrasing gets awkward, you can bullet a complete sentence showing. this item here with an ending semi-colon; this item, which ends in the same semi-colon followed by an "or"; or; this item, which completes the sentence with a period. These are guidelines, not steadfast rules that everyone agrees upon.
Nov 27, 2013 · 6. I've heard (and used) the phrase "positive dilemma". Some may say this is an oxymoron, as a dilemma is by definition between two negative options. But while the word dilemma is especially used to describe multiple undesirable choices, it can simply be a choice between multiple options or a difficult problem. (Source.)
Aug 13, 2010 · Another way is to bite the bullet and use the double contraction; you can find such double contractions in published works, too: You'd've liked my mother. She was tough and smart and full of fun (N. Roberts, 2001) If there's anything I have to do, it's write, old man, and if I'd wanted her to, she'd've stayed (I. Schulze, 2007)
Apr 4, 2015 · Apparently bite it is the originating term, along with eat it, and, where a location for the snack is specified, it does seem to be in the posterior region, though not exclusively so. The Urban Dictionary also suggests that it is a minced oath for blow me, but they offer no supporting documentation. Shakespeare is nowhere to be found.
Mar 14, 2011 · bite the dust informal be killed : and the bad guys bite the dust with lead in their bellies. • figurative fail; come to an end : she hoped the new program would not bite the dust for lack of funding. I found this antedating of bite the dust from a 1728 English translation of François Fénelon's Les Aventures de Télémaque: