At least once in our lifetimes, we all bite the bullet and make peace with our circumstances.
Do you know how the phrase ‘bite the bullet‘ came into existence?
In the olden days, when doctors had no anesthesia for a patient, they would ask the patient to bite down on a bullet. This would distract the patients from pain.
So the phrase means, deciding to do something difficult or unpleasant that one has been putting off or hesitating over.
I wonder how after over 100 years, we still use this phrase and in a reference that dates back to 18th century.
Linking up with Mel’s #MicroblogMondays 250 and Corinne’s #MondayMusings.
happiness and food 
I know of another phrase “Turn a blind eye” which means to overlook on someone’s actions or pretend not to see.
This is said to have originated during the Battle of Copenhagen (guess again from 18th century) when an English Admiral who was blind in one eye deliberately kept a telescope on his blind eye, thus ensuring that he would not see any signal from his superior giving him any orders to withdraw from the battle at the same time pretending to be watchful of his superior.
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That’s a good one! Thanks for sharing Anjana.
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Fascinating! I love the origins of common sayings. Sadly, we have so many bullets around in this world that I doubt it will ever become antiquated. And for some reason I have Civil War movies in my head now, with biting down on a stick (or a bullet!) while a leg is sawed off. Gaaah… f
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That “f” is a typo! 🙂
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Woah! I can totally imagine that scene.
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wow how interesting! I’m not sure though that biting a bullet would adequately distract me from 18th century surgery!
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Ha ha! Agree with that.
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Hmmm..now that I know what this phrase means, I am going to use it in my writing!
Thanks Parul!
Yeah, we do bite the bullet so often, yet are unaware about its origin 🙂
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It’s interesting, when you start tracing back the origin of phrases and words, to see how they came about! Though I’m not sure biting a bullet would have distracted me from an 18th century surgery! Makes me wonder, too, how those people must have survived surgeries without anaesthesia!
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