chomp at the bit

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

To be impatient or eager to start something

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Cảm thấy bất耐 hoặc nóng lòng bắt đầu điều gì đó

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: a horse eager to move
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The kids are chomping at the bit to open their Christmas presents

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “chomp at the bit” mean?

To be impatient or eager to start something Literally: a horse eager to move

Is “chomp at the bit” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.