bite the dust
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bite the dust
slang
1. Of a person, to die. We were so lucky to avoid that massive accident—we might have bitten the dust! A: "Yikes, why did I think Ed had already bitten the dust?" B: "Probably because he's about 100 years old?" My mom is terrified of flying because she's convinced that's how she'll bite the dust.
2. Of a machine, to be near a complete breakdown or loss of functionality. Judging by all that noise coming from her car, I'm pretty sure it's about to bite the dust. I have to go buy a new blender because mine bit the dust today. The company could end up biting the dust if their new product turns out to be a flop.
3. To become unpopular or irrelevant. Sadly, it doesn't take long for the latest technological innovations to bite the dust. Don't even bother getting the latest model of smartphone—those things bite the dust in no time. I thought record players had bitten the dust, but my teen daughters just love mine.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
bite the dust
1. Sl. to die. A shot rang out, and another cowboy bit the dust. The soldier was too young to bite the dust.
2. Sl. to break; to fail; to give out. My old car finally bit the dust. This pen is out of ink and has bitten the dust.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
bite the dust
Suffer defeat or death, as in The 1990 election saw both of our senators bite the dust. Although this expression was popularized by American Western films of the 1930s, in which either cowboys or Indians were thrown from their horses to the dusty ground, it originated much earlier. Tobias Smollett had it in Gil Blas (1750): "We made two of them bite the dust."
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
bite the dust
COMMON
1. If something bites the dust, it fails or stops existing. With the news that milk chocolate can help cut cholesterol, yet another healthy eating fad bites the dust. Quite a few restaurants have bitten the dust recently.
2. If someone bites the dust, they die. A Wild West showman nearly bit the dust when he blew himself up making blank bullets in his garden shed. Note: This expression is used to refer to someone's death in a humorous way. Note: In stories about the Wild West, cowboys were said to `bite the dust' when they were shot and fell off their horses.
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012
bite the dust
1 be killed. 2 fail. informalFarlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
bite the ˈdust
(informal)1 fail, or be defeated or destroyed: Thousands of small businesses bite the dust every year.
2 (humorous) die
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
bite the dust
1. tv. to die. A shot rang out, and another cowboy bit the dust.
2. tv. to break; to fail; to give out. My car finally bit the dust.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
bite the dust
Slang1. To fall dead, especially in combat.
2. To be defeated.
3. To come to an end.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
bite the dust, to
To be defeated or killed. The term became popular from American western films, in which cowboys and/or Indians frequently “bit the dust”—that is, were shot or shoved off their horses to the dusty ground. It became current in the late 1930s. However, the term occurs even earlier in William Cullen Bryant’s translation (1870) of Homer’s Iliad (“his fellow warriors . . . fall round him to the earth and bite the dust”) and it also is found in translations of Virgil’s Aeneid.
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer