Also 4 byȝt, 5 bycht, 6 byght, 7 beight, 7–9 bite. [OE. byht bend, masc., corresp. to MLG. bucht (whence mod.G. bucht ‘bay, bight,’ mod.Du. bocht, also Da., Sw. bugt):—OTeut. *buhti-z, f. būgan to BOW. OE. byht ‘bend’ appears to occur in Cod. Dipl., 538 and App. 308. It is to be distinguished from the poetic byht abode, corresp. to ON. bygð, from byggja to dwell, inhabit. See also BOUGHT sb.]
1. A bending or bend; esp. an angle, hollow or fork in the human or animal body; a corner.
967[?]. Cod. Dipl., 538 (Bosw.). Andlang norþʓeardes ðæt hit cymþ in ðone byht.
c. 1340. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 1349. Bi þe byȝt al of þe þyȝes.
c. 1400. Rel. Ant., I. 190. In the byȝt of the harme.
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 132. Dresse the wodde and bowe it clene and cutte it at euery byghte.
1674. Ray, N. C. Words., Beight of the Elbow: Bending of the Elbow. Cheshire.
1721. Bailey, Bight [of a Horse] is the inward bent of the Chambrel: also the bent of the Knees in the Fore-legs. [So in subseq. Dicts.]
2. esp. The loop of a rope, as distinguished from its ends; the part between the ends.
1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 132. With our capsten [we] stretched the two byghtes.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Bight, the double part of a rope when it is folded … as, her anchor hooked the bight of our cable.
1812. Examiner, 9 Nov., 720/1. The bite of a whale-line having … caught his leg.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 242. To put the little beast into the bight of a rope, and tow him overboard.
1875. Buckland, Log-bk., 290. Catch him round the neck with the bight of a rope.
3. A bend or curve as a geographical feature, e.g., an indentation in a coast line, a corner or recess of a bay, a bend in a river, etc.
1481. in Ripon Ch. Acts, 344. Sleningford Bygh.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind. (Arb.), 381. In the byght of a bay.
1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 180. We found presently in the westerne bight of the bay a deepe river.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 146. In the very bite or nook of the bay there was a great inlet of water.
1852. Conybeare & H., St. Paul (1862), I. v. 135. The town was situated on a bight of the coast.
1876. Morris, Sigurd, II. 165. The bight of the swirling river. Ibid., III. 326. Far off in a bight of the mountains.
b. transf. and fig.
1852. Sir F. Palgrave, Norm. & Eng., I. 30. Bights and bends in the great stream of Time.
1878. Masque Poets, 121. Larded with talk and tallow In the bight of the afternoon.
4. The space between two headlands, a bay, generally a shallow or slightly receding bay; spec. in the Bights of Benin and Biafra, and the Australian Bight; also transf. a bay-like segment.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind. (Arb.), 38. There is a byght or bay as thowgh it were a harborowe.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 194. We ran boldly into the bay, and came to an anchor in that which they call the Bite, or little bay.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Bight, is also a small bay between two points of land.
1833. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, xvii. (1859), 447. The glowing mirror of the calm bight.
1864. D. G. Mitchell, Wet Days at Edgewood, 43. Looking northward, I see there is a bight of blue in the sky.
1878. K. Johnston, Africa, xi. (1884), § 15. Fernando Po, near the head of the Bight of Biafra.
1879. Stevenson, Trav. Cevennes, 190. I spied a bight of meadow … in an angle of the river.
