#Phrases that mean biting the bullet skin

The phrase was used in a literal sense in the 1975 film Bite the Bullet. It is possible that the phrase evolved from the British expression “to bite the cartridge”, which dates to the Indian Rebellion of 1857 but the phrase “chew a bullet”, with a similar meaning, dates to the eighteenth century. It has been suggested that the idiom is derived historically from the practice of having a patient clench a bullet in their teeth as a way of coping with the pain of surgery without anaesthetic, though it was more common to bite a leather strap during surgery. The phrase appeared again, this time in the drawing rooms of the English upper classes, where Bertie Wooster, speaking to Jeeves in The Inimitable Jeeves, 1923, says:

“Bite on the bullet, old man, and don’t let them think you’re afraid.” ‘Steady, Dickie, steady!’ said the deep voice in his ear, and the grip tightened. Kipling wrote a dialogue in that novel, which uses the expression where no actual bullet was involved but where grit and fortitude can be gained by biting a bullet: In that novel the term means to show courage, display a stiff upper lip, a very Victorian attitude. It was the Nobel prize-winning writer’s first novel, set in North Africa during one of the British Empire’s campaigns. The first appearance of the term “bite the bullet” was in the 1891 novel, The Light that Failed, by Rudyard Kipling. You may say something like: “I have to make two people redundant and I know they are going to hate me for the rest of their lives, but I just have to bite the bullet and call them in this afternoon.” Origin of the idiom “bite the bullet” To bite the bullet means to face up to something you have to do and can’t avoid, regardless of how difficult that may be, and to accept the consequences, no matter how unpleasant they may be. Each Shakespeare’s play name links to a range of resources about each play: Character summaries, plot outlines, example essays and famous quotes, soliloquies and monologues: All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry V Julius Caesar King John King Lear Loves Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo & Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus & Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale This list of Shakespeare plays brings together all 38 plays in alphabetical order. Plays It is believed that Shakespeare wrote 38 plays in total between 15.Bite the bullet may have originated in the civil war. Bullets are also readily available in times of war, when this type of surgery is frequently called for. Although quite strong they will actually deform somewhat when bitten hard.Hence teeth would not break as would likely happen from biting a stone for example. Why bite on a bullet? Made of lead, bullets are malleable. It may also have helped to reduce the screaming, which probably benefited the surgeon and attendants. The bullet or stick was given to let the patient focus their energy and attention on the biting instead of the cutting and pain.

To ease the pain the patient was given a couple of stiff belts of whiskey to numb the senses, then given a stick or lead bullet to bite down on as the surgeon went to work with knife and saw. Amazingly, some of these patients survived, but certainly the success ratio was low (poorly skilled physicians today are called hacks).

#Phrases that mean biting the bullet skin

The skin was then pulled down over the stub and sutured shut. These early surgeries were typically limb amputations or the removal of some object lodged into the body such as a bullet or arrowhead.Ī typical amputation consisted of the surgeon using a saw to hackoff the unwanted limb. (3) Housewives are biting the bullet after another increase in LPG prices.īefore the advent of ether, the first anesthetic surgery was a pretty desperate and painful affair, with the patient fully conscious and feeling the pain. (2) Rohan decided to bite the bullet and pay extra for the car that he really wanted. (1) If you want to clear those 8 tickets off your driving record, you will need to bite the bullet and pay the fines.