Meaning:
Be restless and impatient to commence; especially during an unwelcome delay.
Background:
The verb `champ' means `to make a biting or chewing action with the jaws and
teeth". Of course, it was horses that were first said to be `champing at the
bit'; the bit being the mouthpiece of a horse's bridle.
There is an Americanisation connected with this phrase, that is, `chomp at
the bit'. This has become the more commonly used spelling in recent years,
much to the disgust of purists. `Chomp' began to replace `champ' in the USA
in the early 20th century. The first reference I can find to `chomping at the
bit' is from a recruitment advert in The Decatur Daily Review, April, 1920:
When the horses arc chomping at the bit and the "yellow legs" mount up and
the troop rides forth, there is a thrill that no old cavalryman can ever
forget.
Horses still champ/chomp at the bit of course and that literal usage is still
commonplace amongst horsy folk. The figurative usage, which refers to someone
who is impatient, but human rather than equine, began in the mid 19th
century. An early example of that metaphorical usage was printed in the Ohio
newspaper the Newark Daily Advocate, 1885:
`Little breeches' has been tramping down all the tall timber in his
vicinity and champing at the bit tremendously, in his impatience to tackle
Gov. Hoadley in a political discussion.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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Starting high school, Bill often felt as useful to his hard-working family as a
fifth wheel and had been champing at the bit. When, after Gaokao, mom found him
a temporary job digging the streets and laying sewage pipes, he gladly took up
the gig. It was hard work but paid well, he was told.
The new crowd he fell in with were mostly farm boys in town for slow-season work,
guys likely once flagged "bad students" or "no college material" and having
given up school long ago. Bill stood out among these swarthy callused young
lions with a pair of heavy glasses on his nose and a pear-shaped body devoted to
cramming for exams.
It was a new game on a totally different field and he was eager to play. He
flaunted basic safety rules to show that he was no sissy and brandished the
spade to prove himself and blistered his hands in two hours. He worked naked to
the waist in the summer heat of the North China Plain and got sunburned so bad
by the end of the first day that he had to sleep on the sides for a week while a
thin layer of skin slowly peeled off his back.
