up to Idioms

Bite the bullet

Contribute an edit

Submissions are moderated and will not appear immediately.

Text

Allowed HTML: <em>, <strong>, <i>, <a href>, <p>, <ul>, <ol>, <li>, <sup>, <sub>. Links must be internal relative URLs.
Anything else, eg suggestion of category change, scientific name etc.
Photo of bullets.
To bite the bullet means to face a difficult or unpleasant situation with courage, even if you don't want to. People often use this phrase when there is no easy way to avoid a problem.
It originated from war time medicine, where an injured soldier would bite on a bullet to help deal with the pain while they were being treated.

He decided to bite the bullet and pay the fine.

U.S. Army Environmental Command / CC BY-SA