Meaning of bit between one's teeth | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Complete control of a situation; a stance that cannot be controlled or restrained by anyone else.
2. A large degree of focus and commitment to a task.
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bit, between, teeth.

Examples

“If he was to get the bit between his teeth after he had got ordained and bought his living, he would play more pranks than ever he, Theobald, had done.”

“Unruly clients might take the bit between their teeth and threaten to drag their patron into the fray.”

“Rebkah Rahskail probably wasn't, and neither was her cousin, Dragon Hill, but they might find themselves pulled into an adventure if the others got the bit between their teeth.”

“As for taking the bit between his teeth, Sir Raffle, I do not think that any man was ever more obedient, perhaps I should say more submissive, than I have been. But there must be a limit to everything.'”

“The upheaval in the creative unions seems to have gone further than expected and the forces for renewal took the bit between their teeth — to such an extent that the writers' congress in June of the same year would follow more staid formulas and attempt more of a compromise between the old and the new, as compared to the Fifth Congress of the Filmmakers' Union in May, where the old guard of film directors had been eliminated (Lev Kulidshanov, Vladimir Naumov, and Sergei Bondarchuk).”

“When my father had the bit between his teeth he would work all day and half the night, barely stopping to eat, snapping at anyone who interrupted him.”

“Soon, however, he took the bit between his teeth and wrote and wrote. Work was therapy; by the time the memoirs were published he had recovered his self-confidence.”

“Some fellow British travellers at Xian, who own horses and therefore understand equine tack, pointed out — when I asked about the authenticity of the replicas — that the horses could not possibly have coped with the bit between their teeth (as they were shown) for long.”

“His eyebrows drew together, his hand found his pipe. He put the bit between his teeth and then he could think better, could think almost as well as when he had the strap of his accordion on his shoulder and his hands on the keys.”

CEFR level