bait
/beɪt
/noun
1 [mass noun] Food placed on a hook or in a net, trap, or fishing area to entice fish or other animals as prey: herrings make excellent bait for pike [count noun]: fishing with live baits...
- Most are small, less than three or four feet, but occasionally a pier or jetty angler soaking a big bait hooks a fish with real shoulders.
- The secret is to look hard for the fish and to present baits in any areas that warrant a cast.
- Quickly and happily, I went back to the truck to grab my fishing rod and some bait.
Synonyms
lure, decoy, fly, troll, jig, plug, teaser
1.1Something intended to entice someone to do something: many potential buyers are reluctant to take the bait...
- So far most Shiites have declined to take the bait.
- Not that he would ever actually be elected PM, but you know what I mean - there's not even the potential for it if he won't take the bait, right?
- Will the PM's morning radio female Piranha take the bait?
Synonyms
enticement, lure, decoy, snare, trap, siren, carrot, attraction, draw, magnet, incentive, temptation, allurement, incitement, inducement
informal come-on
2 variant spelling of bate1.
verb [with object]
1Deliberately annoy or taunt (someone): the other boys revelled in baiting him about his love of literature...
- My government actually has to bait people with catchy song in order to do the thing that should be a civic duty.
- These kids are baiting me because they want to hear it from my own mouth.
- I don't want him to see me give in to the weight of those urges because his dad has baited me.
Synonyms
taunt, goad, provoke, pick on, torment, torture, persecute, badger, plague, harry, harass, hound, tease, annoy, irritate, get someone's back up
informal hassle, needle, give someone a hard time, wind up, nark
1.1Cause dogs to attack (a trapped or restrained animal): people who bait badgers...
- Dogs were often used to bait lions, tigers, bears, and other big mammals as part of bloody spectacles popular with the king and paying visitors.
- The deer baited by the Ward Union Stag Hunt are, by definition, tame animals, as they have been confined and farmed by the Hunt.
- In the Middle Ages they were used to chase wild boar, to bait bulls and were also used as bodyguards.
2Put bait on (a hook) or in (a trap, net, or fishing area) to entice fish or animals: I used a hook baited with fat...
- The size 1 hair-rigged hook was baited with two standard boilies with a pop-up on top.
- The hook was baited with two maggots and the tackle fished a few inches over-depth.
- Every time one of her grandkids goes fishing and baits a hook the way Grandma taught them to do, her immortality is assured.
Phrases
fish or cut bait
rise to the bait
Derivatives
baiter
- They should come out and boldly take legal action against the baiter.
- He is belittled as a race baiter and attention seeker.
- Hastings pleasantly offered to act in the capacity of general baiter and taker off of fish.
Origin
Middle English: from Old Norse beit 'pasture, food', beita 'to hunt or chase'.
abet from Late Middle English:
If you abet someone these days you are very likely to be up to no good, but this was not always the case. Since the late 18th century the word has mainly been found as aid and abet, ‘to help and encourage someone in some wrongdoing’, but in its early use to abet someone was simply to urge them to do something, not necessarily bad. It comes from the Old French word abeter, which could also mean ‘to encourage a hound to bite’. bait (Middle English) has a similar root.