1
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Phrase(s): bite the dust
1. Sl. to die. • A shot rang out, and another cowboy bit the dust. • The soldier was too young to bite the dust. 2. Sl. to break; to fail; to give out. • My old car finally bit the dust. • This pen is out of ink and has bitten the dust.
McGrawhill's American Idioms And Phrasal Verbs
2
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Suffer defeat or death, as in The 1990 election saw both of our senators bite the dust. Although this expression was popularized by American Western films of the 1930s, in which either cowboys or Indians were thrown from their horses to the dusty ground, it originated much earlier. Tobias Smollett had it in Gil Blas (1750): "We made two of them bite the dust."
American Heritage Idioms