What Is The Past Tense of Bite

The verb “to bite” in English can have a variety of meanings, ranging from a literal sense relating to the action of clamping down on something with one’s teeth or mouth, to a more figurative sense where we use it to describe pain felt at the onset of things like sharp winter winds.

The simple past tense of bite is “bit” while the past participle is “bitten.”

We’ll explore more about this word and its past tense forms below.

What is the past tense of “bite”?

Bite (verb):

(1) Use one’s teeth to cut into something or through something

(2) To deliver sharp (and usually painful) cold

• Infinitive                       to bite
• Simple Past                bit
• Past Participle             bitten

Conjugation Table

Pronoun	Infinitive	Simple Past	Present Perfect	Present Continuous
I	bite	bit	have bitten	am biting
You (sing.)	bite	bit	have bitten	are biting
He/She/It	bites	bit	has bitten	is biting
We	bite	bit	have bitten	are biting
You (pl.)	bite	bit	have bitten	are biting
They	bite	bit	have bitten	are biting

Example Sentences

(1) Use one’s teeth to cut into something or through something

• He bit hungrily and eagerly into a delicious sandwich
• Wait for the fish to bite before you start reeling them in
• Children often go through a period where they are likely to bite parents, caregivers or even their peers, but it’s quite normal.

(2) To deliver sharp (and usually painful) cold

• The wind was biting at my face as it blew
• The early-morning cold really bites, so you should wrap up warm

Focus: Past Tense of Bite

To understand the word “bite” a lot better, and especially how to use it in the past tense, we have prepared a number of example sentences that make use of all of the following forms:

• Simple past
• Present perfect
• Past continuous
• Past perfect

Simple Past

• The young girl bit the teacher in anger, causing him to yowl in pain
• I bit into the cookie, but unfortunately cracked a tooth on one of the hard candies inside
• He bit down on his tongue by accident, sending shockwaves of pain through his body

Present Perfect

• My dog has bitten me before, but we have since seen a behavior specialist and now she would never do that
• Have you ever bitten another person? It’s a strange experience
• I have bitten directly into ice cream before, but can’t do that now because my teeth are too sensitive

Past Continuous

• I saw that he was biting down on the toy quite hard…how did you get it from him?
• We were just biting into our tacos when we heard the fire alarm and had to leave
• The wind was biting at my face all afternoon while I walked the dogs

Past Perfect

• He had bitten his brother on the arm before he could even think about retaliating
• You had already bitten into the sandwich before you noticed that there was a dead insect inside it?

You can check other past tense words by clicking on the links in the table below.

Table 2: Table of Links for irregular Past Tense Verbs

bend	meet	copy	beat
lay	draw	buy	Fly
Drink	Think	wear	dive
rise	dream	Speak	bite
bear	begin	freeze	sink
make	take