What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Bite vs Snappish - What's the difference?

bite | snappish |

As a verb bite

is to cut off a piece by clamping the teeth.

As a noun bite

is the act of biting.

As an adjective snappish is

likely to snap or bite.

bite

English

Verb

  • To cut off a piece by clamping the teeth.
  • As soon as you bite that sandwich, you'll know how good it is.
  • To hold something by clamping one's teeth.
  • To attack with the teeth.
  • That dog is about to bite !
  • To behave aggressively; to reject advances.
  • If you see me, come and say hello. I don't bite .
  • To take hold; to establish firm contact with.
  • I needed snow chains to make the tires bite .
  • To have significant effect, often negative.
  • For homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages, rising interest will really bite .
  • (of a fish) To bite a baited hook or other lure and thus be caught.
  • Are the fish biting today?
  • (metaphor) To accept something offered, often secretly or deceptively, to cause some action by the acceptor.
  • I've planted the story. Do you think they'll bite ?
  • (intransitive, transitive, of an insect) To sting.
  • These mosquitoes are really biting today!
  • To cause a smarting sensation; to have a property which causes such a sensation; to be pungent.
  • It bites like pepper or mustard.
  • To cause sharp pain, or smarting, to; to hurt or injure, in a literal or a figurative sense.
  • Pepper bites the mouth.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Frosts do bite the meads.
  • To cause sharp pain; to produce anguish; to hurt or injure; to have the property of so doing.
  • * Bible, Proverbs xxiii. 32
  • At the last it [wine] biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
  • To take or keep a firm hold.
  • The anchor bites .
  • To take hold of; to hold fast; to adhere to.
  • The anchor bites the ground.
  • * Charles Dickens
  • The last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, it turned and turned with nothing to bite .
  • (slang) To lack quality; to be worthy of derision; to suck.
  • This music really bites .
  • (transitive, informal, vulgar) To perform oral sex on. (Used in invective).
  • You don't like that I sat on your car? Bite me.
  • (intransitive, AAVE, slang) To plagiarize, to imitate.
  • He always be biting my moves.

    Derived terms

    * bite back * bite in the ass * bite me * bite off * bite off more than one can chew * bite one's knuckle * bite one's tongue * biter * bite someone's head off * bite the big one * bite the bullet * bite the dust * bite the hand that feeds one * biting

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of .
  • * Walton
  • I have known a very good fisher angle diligently four or six hours for a river carp, and not have a bite .
  • The wound left behind after having been bitten.
  • That snake bite really hurts!
  • The swelling of one's skin caused by an insect's mouthparts or sting.
  • After just one night in the jungle I was covered with mosquito bites .
  • A piece of food of a size that would be produced by ; a mouthful.
  • There were only a few bites left on the plate.
  • (slang) Something unpleasant.
  • That's really a bite !
  • (slang) An act of plagiarism.
  • That song is a bite of my song!
  • A small meal or snack.
  • I'll have a quick bite to quiet my stomach until dinner.
  • (figuratively) aggression
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011
  • , date=March 2 , author=Saj Chowdhury , title=Man City 3 - 0 Aston Villa , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=City scored the goals but periods of ball possession were shared - the difference being Villa lacked bite in the opposition final third.}}
  • The hold which the short end of a lever has upon the thing to be lifted, or the hold which one part of a machine has upon another.
  • (colloquial, dated) A cheat; a trick; a fraud.
  • * Humorist
  • The baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite , by deceiving and overreaching.
  • (colloquial, dated, slang) A sharper; one who cheats.
  • (Johnson)
  • (printing) A blank on the edge or corner of a page, owing to a portion of the frisket, or something else, intervening between the type and paper.
  • (Webster 1913)

    Synonyms

    * (act of biting) * (wound left behind after having been bitten) * (sense, swelling caused by an insect's mouthparts or sting) sting * (piece of food of a size that would be produced by biting) mouthful * * * (small meal or snack) snack *

    Derived terms

    * bitemark * bite-sized * bite stick * crossbite * in one bite * overbite * snake-bite, snakebite * underbite

    snappish

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Likely to snap or bite.
  • A snappish cur
  • *1877 , (Anna Sewell), (Black Beauty) Chapter 22[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Black_Beauty/22]
  • *:"She came to us snappish and suspicious, but when she found what sort of place ours was, it all went off by degrees
  • Exhibiting irritation or impatience; curt; irascible.
  • * 1990 , Nora Roberts, Taming Natasha , Silhouette Books (2011), ISBN 9781459213173, unnumbered page:
  • She heard her own voice, snappish and rude, and pressed a hand to her head.
  • * 2011 , Lynne McTaggart, The Bond , Simon & Schuster (2011), ISBN 9781439157947, page 91:
  • Even though the woman didn't work closely with Barsade, so palpable was her complaining and snappish temperament that it had infected everyone who worked around her.
  • * 2011 , Mary Doria Russell, Doc , Random House (2011), ISBN 9781400068043, page 173:
  • There was something underneath her snappish belligerence that made him feel protective and tolerant.

    Derived terms

    * snappishly * snappishness