bight

From Middle English bight, biȝt, byȝt (also bought, bowght, bouȝt, see bought), from Old English byht (“bend, angle, corner; bay, bight”), 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”) . Compare bought.

• IPA^(key): /baɪt/
• Rhymes: -aɪt
• Homophones: bite, by't, byte

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

   • 1905, Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, page 166

     I spied a bight of meadow some way below the roadway in an angle of the river.

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
   • 1902, Joseph Conrad, chapter I, in Heart of Darkness:

     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.

• Bight of Benin
• Bight of Biafra
• German Bight
• Great Australian Bight
• New York Bight

• Appendix:Parts of the knot