English Help Online's Blog

I hope everyone is having a good weekend. Today, I’ve decided to go over the idiom: “to bite the bullet”. This expression is used to talk about something that we don’t want to do, but we can’t avoid doing it. Because we don’t want to do it, we delay doing it. When we finally do it, we use this expression, “to bite the bullet”. For example:

I know you don’t want to tell Harold that he’s fired, but you have to do it eventually. You should just bite the bullet and do it now.

I broke up with my girlfriend last night. I wasn’t happy in the relationship for a long time, but I had been putting it off. Finally, last night I just bit the bullet and did it.

A: I’m really nervous about asking my boss for a raise.

B: I know it’s hard, but just bite the bullet and ask him. The worst thing he can do is say no.

In the second example, the phrasal verb “put off” means to postpone doing something. Also, in the last example, the word “raise” means a salary increase. Therefore, the person is nervous about asking the boss for a salary increase and is delaying asking him for it.