I've had a bait of it

Posted by R. Berg on July 06, 2005

In Reply to: I've had a bait of it posted by ESC on July 06, 2005

: : : Wondering about the derivation of "I've had a bate of it." Recently heard in N. Carolina. The usage was to indicate the person had had enough of something.

: : I've heard that and thought it would be easy to find in one of my southern dictionaries. No luck yet.

: Found it under "bait."

: bait n. -- food, generally a large amount (I eat a bait of black eyed peas and hog jowls New Year's.) From Southern Mountain Speech by Cratis D. Williams (Berea College Press, Ky., 1992)

: bait -- n. a full meal. "I et me a bait o' ramps, and tasted them for a week atterwards." Also S. Car. "I et me a bait" literally means a mere snack, but jocosely it may admit a hearty meal... From "Smoky Mountain Voices: A Lexicon of Southern Appalachian Speech Based on the Research of Horace Kephart," edited by Harold J. Farwell Jr., and J. Karl Nicholas (University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky., 1993).

: (In W.Va., we said, "I ate a bite." Meaning a snack.

Did "bait" in this sense come from "bite"? --rb

• I've had a bait of it ESC 06/July/05