bear baitn.
/ˈbɛː beɪt/, U.S. /ˈbɛr ˌbeɪt/ 1. A fight between a bear, which has been chained or tethered by the neck or leg, and a pack of dogs, organized as a form of entertainment. Cf. bear-baiting n. 1. Now historical.The practice of bear-baiting is now illegal throughout the world.
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society > leisure > sport > types of sport or game > fighting or baiting animals > animal baiting > [noun] > bear-baiting
bear playa1400
bear-baitingc1400
bear fight1550
bear baitc1590
c1590 Manifolde Enormities in F. R. Raines Descr. County Lancaster (1875) 2 Wackes, Ales, Greenes, Maigames, Rushbearinges, Bearebaites, Doveales, Bonfiers, all maner vnlawfull Gaming, Pipinge and Daunsinge, and suche like, ar in all places frely exercised vppon ye Sabboth.
1789 Chester Chron. 14 Aug. The annual festivity at Flookersbrook, near this city, was graced, on Monday last, with the rational amusement of a bear-bait!
1971 Times Lit. Suppl. 23 July 864/4 The gentlemen have only assembled for a cock-fight or a bear-bait.
2003 B. Rogers Beef & Liberty ix. 130 Bull and bear baits, cock fights and other cruel sports, often identified at home and abroad as characteristically English, were generally run by butchers—and it was their dogs that tended to dominate the ring.
2. Bait used by a hunter to lure or trap a bear.
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1888 Forest & Stream 12 Jan. 487/3 The above game killed illegally, was chiefly killed..late in the spring for bear bait.
1964 Rhinelander (Wisconsin) Daily News 9 Oct. 7/1 We wondered what the old time trappers did to attract bears to their traps. Flambeau Joe tells us that the best bear bait is fish.
2013 Bangor (Maine) Daily News (Nexis) 7 Aug. Animal rights groups..have also asked providers of food products used as bear bait to stop supplying leftover food waste to bear hunters.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2020; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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