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Bite the Bullet
To "bite the bullet" is to accept and/or endure an unpleasant situation, quite often after hesitating to do so.

Best evidence finds that this phrase originated in the days before anesthesia when a wounded soldier was given a bullet to bite down on before undergoing surgery. Civilians during this time period were frequently given a leather strap to chew on before surgeries both to distract them and to protect them from biting their tongues; it seems the bullet may have been an alternative found on the battlefields.

In 1796, Francis Grose wrote in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: "It is a point of honor in some regiments, among the grenadiers, never to cry out,...., to avoid which, they chew a bullet." The first written use of this phrase with it's current meaning occurred in 1891 in Rudyard Kipling's book, The Light that Failed: "Bite on the bullet, old man, and don't let them think you're afraid."

Use Example - "It's time I bit the bullet and make a budget already."

Source Tags : Military  Books