bitten

1. 1
   verb

   Past participle of bite.

   He was bitten by a snake while clearing the trail.

   Several hikers have been bitten by ticks this season.

   Note

   The form that follows have and be: the dog has bitten someone, the hiker was bitten. It is built from the past form bit plus the participle ending -en. So bit is the simple past and bitten the participle: he bit, he has bitten. Because it carries every sense of bite, it can be figurative too. A new rule that has bitten hard has taken real effect.

2. 2
   adjective

   Marked or wounded as a result of having received a bite.

   The bitten fruit drew a swarm of wasps to the picnic.

   His bitten ankle swelled up by the time he reached the clinic.

3. 3
   adjective

   Ending abruptly with a ragged edge, as the roots or leaves of some plants do.

   Botanists described the rhizome as bitten, its tip stopping in a jagged stump.

   The fern's bitten fronds looked as though their ends had been torn away.

   Note

   A botanist's word borrowed from the teeth. The end looks as though something had chewed it off, though nothing did. In formal plant descriptions the same shape is called premorse, and the two terms mean the same thing; bitten is simply the plainer English. Unlike the everyday adjective, it implies no actual bite. It names a shape, not an injury.

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