bye

[ bahy ]

/ baɪ /

SEE SYNONYMS FOR bye ON THESAURUS.COM

noun Also by.

Sports. in a tournament, the preferential status of a player or team not paired with a competitor in an early round and thus automatically advanced to play in the next round: The top three seeded players received byes in the first round.

Golf. the holes of a stipulated course still unplayed after the match is finished.

Cricket. a run made on a ball not struck by the batsman.

something subsidiary, secondary, or out of the way.

adjective

by¹.

Idioms for bye

by the bye, by the way; incidentally: By the bye, how do you spell your name?Also by the by .

Origin of bye

1710–20; variant spelling of by¹ in its noun sense “side way”

Words nearby bye

by definition, by degrees, by design, Bydgoszcz, by dint of, bye, bye-bye, bye-byes, by-election, Byelgorod-Dnestrovski, Byelorussia

Definition for bye (2 of 3)

bye²

or by

[ bahy ]

/ baɪ /

interjection

goodbye.

Definition for bye (3 of 3)

bye-

variant of by-: bye-election.

Dictionary.com UnabridgedBased on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2020

Example sentences from the Web for bye

That feat earned them a double bye into the semifinals of the playoffs, which began Sunday against the Connecticut Sun.
A’ja Wilson Was Benched In College. Now She’s An MVP.|Dorothy J. Gentry|September 22, 2020|FiveThirtyEight
The WNBA’s setup heavily favors top seeds — who get two byes, as the Nos.
Reading The Right Amount Into The NFL’s Week 1|Sarah Shachat|September 15, 2020|FiveThirtyEight
“Bye-bye,” whispered a 3-year-old girl one day as Coyote left her room.
For Aspiring Performers, The NBA Is The Best Place To Be A Mascot|Josh Planos|July 17, 2020|FiveThirtyEight
The bye bye is being sung, incidentally, by mothers to their babies condemned to death by King Herod.
Yes, I Like Christmas Music. Stop Laughing.|Michael Tomasky|December 24, 2014|DAILY BEAST

I never knew how long he would last before he said, “Okay, bye.”
A Full-Length Bill Cosby Portrait: From Track Star to Ugly Sweaters|Scott Porch|September 24, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The year before that, West Side Story and Bye Bye Birdie were huge sellers.
Before the Earthquake Hit: When The Beatles Landed in America|Michael Tomasky|January 29, 2014|DAILY BEAST
He was alone, wrapped at six in the morning, and the rest of us had wrapped earlier and were like, “Well, bye, goodnight!”
Alison Brie on ‘Community’s’ New Beginning, Dan Harmon’s Return, Nicolas Cage, and More|Marlow Stern|January 3, 2014|DAILY BEAST
To quote my spirit animal, Merritt Wever, “I gotta go, bye.”
The Crazy Emmy Awards 2013: Wild Upsets, Odd Hosting & More (VIDEO)|Kevin Fallon|September 23, 2013|DAILY BEAST
No words can do justice to her beauty, though, by the bye, he must have contemplated her through the back of his head!'
Beechcroft at Rockstone|Charlotte M. Yonge
The sin lies in the inclination (by the bye, I think that's half a mistake).
Records of a Girlhood|Frances Ann Kemble
So he went back on his track and by and bye came to the tree in which Ledha was hiding.
Folklore of the Santal Parganas|Cecil Henry Bompas
Only time to learn the letters that we shall spell hereafter—to form the strokes and loops wherewith we shall write by and bye.
It Might Have Been|Emily Sarah Holt
There had always been trouble in collecting the rates on bye and cross post letters.
The History of the British Post Office|Joseph Clarence Hemmeon

British Dictionary definitions for bye (1 of 2)

bye¹

/ (baɪ) /

noun

sport the situation in which a player or team in an eliminatory contest wins a preliminary round by virtue of having no opponent

golf one or more holes of a stipulated course that are left unplayed after the match has been decided

cricket a run scored off a ball not struck by the batsman: allotted to the team as an extra and not to the individual batsmanSee also leg bye

something incidental or secondary

by the bye incidentally; by the way: used as a sentence connector

Word Origin for bye

C16: a variant of by

British Dictionary definitions for bye (2 of 2)