"bite the billet"
Posted by Gary Martin on December 18, 2005
In Reply to: "Bite the billet" Posted by Philip Stokes on December 17, 2005
: I thought that "bite the bullet" was a corruption of "bite the billet" as in a billet of wood. It seems to make more sense.
'Bite the billet' isn't really a phrase in our language. Google can only find 138 "bite the billet" and many of those a typing errors, as opposed to more than million "bite the bullet".
There's no entry for 'bite the billet' in any reference I have, including the OED. Taking a wild stab here, I'd guess you made this up yourself.
Alternatively 'bite the bullet' has some pedigree.