bye

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noun

ˈbī

plural byes ˈbīz

: the position of a participant in a tournament who advances to the next round without playing

drew a first-round bye

bye

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interjection

—used as a shortened form of goodbye to express farewell

When he finally spoke, though, and said, "Bye, I'll call you," instead of disappointment she had felt an enormous rush of relief—a feeling, she thinks now, of things falling back into place.—

Ann PackerThe stag lowered his head and raised it again. He blew out a frosty puff of air, then leaped away, vanishing into the mist. "Bye," Annie said wistfully.—

Mary Pope Osborne"Bye, Mom! Bye, Auggie!" I kissed them both quickly and headed toward the door.—

R. J. Palacio

Example Sentences

Noun She got a bye into the second round of the tennis tournament.

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Calera, which was scheduled to meet McAdory in the third round of the 6A state playoffs Thursday night, will receive a bye and advance to next week’s AHSAA State Soccer semifinals. —

al, 4 May 2023 The top six teams in each conference advance, with the top two seeds in each conference receiving first-round byes. —

Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 11 Mar. 2023 Of the top four teams, who all received byes, three of them had no starters miss any games during conference play with the other only having one starter miss a game. —

Richard Obert, The Arizona Republic, 6 Mar. 2023 With the win, Oregon (18-13, 12-8 Pac-12) will enter the conference tournament as the No. 4 seed and receive a bye into Thursday’s quarterfinals in Las Vegas. —

oregonlive, 4 Mar. 2023 Utah was 1-1 against Colorado and received a bye for the first time. —

Marisa Ingemi, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Feb. 2023 West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, whose team is projected as one of the last four receiving byes, took aim at the selection committee in a preemptive strike after the narrow loss at Kansas. —

Dallas News, 27 Feb. 2023 The Novas received a bye and will face the winner of No. 7 seed University School of Milwaukee and No. 10 seed Milwaukee School of Languages. —

Zac Bellman, Journal Sentinel, 21 Feb. 2023 Both teams received first-round byes in their respective region playoffs and will begin their state title runs Monday. —

Glenn Graham, Baltimore Sun, 21 Feb. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bye.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.