bye

plural byes

1. The position of a person or team in a tournament or competition who draws no opponent in a particular round so advances to the next round unopposed, or is awarded points for a win in a league table; also the phantom opponent of such a person or team.

   Craig's Crew plays the bye next week.

   1 more example

   The Patriots were in the unique situation of having to play 16 straight games, then have their bye in week 17, whether they needed it or not.

   2020, Jerry Thornton, From Darkness to Dynasty

2. ball gamesAn extra scored when the batsmen take runs after the ball has passed the striker without hitting either the bat or the batsman.
3. obsoleteA thing not directly aimed at; a secondary or subsidiary object, course, path, undertaking, issue, etc.

   The Synod of Dort in some points condemneth, upon the by, even the discipline of the Church of England.

   1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)

4. ScotlandAn unspecified way or place.

   No word of a new house-keeper down bye, Wull?

   1894, David Storrar Meldrum, Margridel

   3 more examples

   Frank Kennedy will shew you the penalties in the act, and ye ken yoursell they used to put their run goods into the auld Place of Ellangowan up bye there.

   1815, Sir Walter Scott, Guy Manneringv

   This was lattin at me, ye ken, for inveetin the coachman an' the gamekeeper up bye.

   1880, W. Alexander, Johnny Gibb

   There's a friend of yours up bye that would be blithe to see you—up the rig from the auld aik on the road to the Greenshiel.

   1927, John Buchan, Witch Wood

5. card gamesA pass.

comparative more bye · superlative most bye

1. Out of the way; remote.

   At length having gained a very bye Alley, where he thought he might enter into a Conference unnoticed by any who knew him.

   1765, The Parasite, page 194

   2 more examples

   I left Colchester at one o'clock, and had a very agreeable ride from thence to my Uncle's– It is a very bye road , I did not meet a carriage or horse all the way, which is I believe eleven or twelve miles, but however I turned this to good advantage, and availed myself of the rural ride and variegated prospects, which assisted me to meditate.

   1797, John Henry Prince, Original letters and essays on moral and entertaining subjects, page 85

   So riding towards Cheshunt in the same county, he put into a bye sort of a house, a little out of the road, in which, finding only a poor old woman bitterly weeping, and asking the reason of shedding those tears, she told him, that she was a poor widow and being somewhat indebted for rent to her landlord whe expected him every minute to come and seize what few goods she had, which would be her utter ruin.

   2013, Captain Alexander Smith, Arthur L. Hayward, A Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts and Cheats of Both Sexes, page 69

2. Secondary; supplementary.

   It is the custom in some provinces to pay only according to the basic crops produced, but in others the share is calculated out of the total produce of the farm, both bye and main products.

   2018, Victor D Lippit, Revival: Land Reform and Economic Development in China (1975), page 54

   2 more examples

   But the two labourers of whom I am speaking had their allowances, lived on their fixed wages with the profits of their bye labour, one being pig-killer to the village, and, therefore, always busy from Michaelmas to Lady-day, at a shilling a pig, and the offal, on which his family subsisted, wit h the produce of their small curtilage, for half the year.

   1894, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, Eight Chapters on the History of Work and Wages, page 138

   As we shall see presently the wife of a craftsman almost always worked as her husband's assistant in his trade, or if not, she often eked out the family income by some such bye industry as brewing and spinning; sometimes she even practised a separate trade as a femme sole.

   2012, Eileen Power, Michael Moïssey Postan, Medieval Women, page 45

1. colloquialGoodbye.
2. slangAfrican-American VernacularAn exclamation of disbelief or dismissal.

   Her jeans don't even got the loops for her damn belt LMFAO bye 😭

   2021 February 18, @mi55fatima, Twitter, archived from the original on 20 Jul 2023

   4 more examples

   “Okay, busted. But you see all them muscles, girl?” She shakes her head, laughing. “Nope. I only have eyes for my boo.” “Girl, bye. You can still look.” She giggles. “Well, I ain’t lookin’ hard, trust.[…]”

   2015, Amir Abrams, Diva Rules, Dafina Books, →ISBN, page 151

   Rowlings-Blake responded: "Girl bye, if he can't take criticism from 'a joke', what's he gonna do when somebody real comes for him? #notready"

   2016 August 7, Susan Edelman, C.J. Sullivan, Bruce Golding, “Trump supporter's sign gets torched”, in New York Post, New York, N.Y.: News Corp, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05 Dec 2022

   "i wish to get back a couple of katycats that left my side" bye did she really say this..its so sad i love her sm 😢😔

   2021 December 20, @kplightning, Twitter, archived from the original on 20 Jul 2023

   "I just want Johnny to leave me alone." Girl, bye. Control your lap dog.

   2023 July 11, @KimcastCares, Twitter, archived from the original on 20 Jul 2023

   Synonyms: get out of here, applesauce, bender, bollocks, bosh, bugger off, bullcrap, bullcrud

plural byes

1. computingA command to exit a session.

plural byes

1. pronunciation spellingEye dialect spelling of boy.

   I know a nice bye who's goin' to git two cookies fer thim worrds.

   1920, Marjorie Benton Cooke, The Girl who Lived in the Woods, page 184

   5 more examples

   "So what shall I do, now, Patric? Can you think of any plan? "Bedad!" said Pat , as he scratched his head , “ I'm the very bye that can."

   1883, Rose Garfield Clemens, “Pat and the Pig”, in Ballou's Dollar Monthly Magazine, volume 58, page 383

   'Och,' sez I, 'there's many a bye that's lonely livin' rite wid his friends an' naybors. Sure an' I'm lonesome mesilf.'

   1887, “Pat's Love Episode”, in Parry's Monthly Magazine, volume 3, page 252

   There a bye has his hand toorn off, and there a bye loses his eyesight complately, and over yan a bye has his joogular vein torn wid a whistlin' boom, and forninst that is the bye who thinks his gun isn't loaded and kills his little sisther.

   1903, Our Young People - Volume 12, page 51

   In thim days the bye who wint to work in the foundhry to learn the thrade, in goin' into the shop in the morning would meet a big, ruffneck boss wit his blue faunel shirt on and his schleeves rolled up to his ilbows, who could show him the mishtakes he made the day befoor, if he made any.

   1907, International Molders' and Foundry Workers' Journal, page 545

   Hardy, weatherbeaten, intimately familiar with the winds and tides of his local shore, capable of turning his hand to many things, squeezing a hard living from the treacherous sea—a figure rendered familiar by the words “Ise the bye who builds the boat / And ise the bye that sails her / Ise the bye who catches the fish / And takes them home to Liza."

   2012, Robert Craig Brown, Illustrated History of Canada, page 224

1. obsoleteObsolete spelling of by.

1. obsoleteObsolete spelling of bee.

plural Byes

1. A surname.