Instal the new for apple Bite the Bullet2/26/2024 It seems a long tedious process but a well-trained soldier could get off three, sometimes four, rounds a minute. The musketeer would then add the musket ball, either spitting or placing it into the muzzle before ramming everything home with the ramrod. The 'musketeer' would bite off the bullet with his teeth and, keeping the musket ball in his mouth, would put the rest of the cartridge down the muzzle. It comprised the musket ball and the black powder charge wrapped in strong cartridge paper, from where the expression 'cartridge paper' is derived. The cartridge bullet was introduced in 1586. There is little doubt that the original, literal expression is military language from the late 16th century. The OED opts out of the issue of origin and deals only with the current figurative meaning of the expression, which it attributes to Rudyard Kipling’s 1891 novel 'The Light that Failed'. Chew on this musket ball (which one is more than likely to swallow) while I hack your leg off.” This is improbable when a piece of wood or a leather strap to bite on would be much more sensible. This would have been a musket ball because metal cartridge bullets had not been invented then. The most commonly encountered origin is that wounded soldiers during the 18th/early 19th centuries were given a bullet to bite on while they underwent painful battlefield surgery. The meaning of the expression is not the problem but the origin certainly is. This expression means to steel oneself to perform or finish a task, often unpleasant, that one may have been avoiding or putting off and this figurative meaning dates from the 19th century.
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