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bite the dust
Slang Dictionary

bite the dust definition


  1. tv.
    to die. : A shot rang out, and another cowboy bit the dust.
  2. tv.
    to break; to fail; to give out. : My car finally bit the dust.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Slang Dictionary

dust definition


  1. in.
    to leave; to depart. : They dusted out of there at about midnight.
  2. tv.
    to defeat someone; to win out over someone. : We dusted the other team, eighty-seven to fifty-four.
  3. tv.
    to kill someone. (Underworld.) : The gang set out to dust the witnesses but got only one of them.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source
American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

bite the dust

Suffer defeat or death, as in The 1990 election saw both of our senators bite the dust. Although this expression was popularized by American Western films of the 1930s, in which either cowboys or Indians were thrown from their horses to the dusty ground, it originated much earlier. Tobias Smollett had it in Gil Blas (1750): "We made two of them bite the dust."

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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