bight

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English

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Etymology

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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-Indo-European *bʰūgʰ- (“to bend”).

Cognate with Scots bicht (“bight”), Dutch bocht (“bend, curve”), Low German Bucht (“bend, bay”), German Bucht (“bay, bight”), Danish bugt (“bay”), Icelandic bugða (“curve”), Albanian butë (“soft, flabby”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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bight (plural bights)

Map of Australia, showing the Great Australian Bight.
A bight (curve in a rope)
  1. A corner, bend, or angle; a hollow
    the bight of a horse's knee
    the bight of an elbow
  2. 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.
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Translations

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Verb

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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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