Meaning
A second chance to attempt, win or benefit from something after a first try has failed or an opportunity has been missed. Because a cherry is small enough to be eaten in a single bite, a second bite is an extra, unearned opportunity rather than something you are entitled to. Often used in the negative to deny a rematch or a second attempt. At and of the cherry are interchangeable (Cambridge lists both). British legal writing uses two bites at the cherry in res judicata arguments to criticise repeated litigation. The Ray-1670 attribution circulates online but is not in Ray's own text. Regional use: Chiefly British; common across the Commonwealth. American English prefers a second bite at the apple.
Origin
Chiefly British: Cambridge's Advanced Learner's Dictionary files another/a second bite at/of the cherry as a UK idiom meaning another opportunity to do something. A dated print anchor of the phrase family is Thomas Bailey Aldrich's story collection Two Bites at a Cherry, with Other Tales (Houghton Mifflin, 1894). The American second bite at the apple is the transatlantic cousin, dominant in US English. One popular origin claim fails verification: online references attribute the proverb 'to make two bites of a cherry' to John Ray's Collection of English Proverbs (1670), but searches of the Ray editions on the Internet Archive find no such proverb - the attribution is debunked on the record.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a bite at the cherry
- a second bite at the apple
- another bite at the cherry
- two bites at the cherry
Usage Examples
- He missed a medal in the 100 metres, but will get a second bite of the cherry in the 400 metres.
- Since so many students failed the exam, the teacher offered them a second bite of the cherry.
- The regulator refused the bank a second bite of the cherry after the failed application.