Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a card-sharp.

1674		C. Cotton Compleat Gamester 6: Shoals of Huffs, Hectors, Setters, Gilts, Pads, Biters, Divers, Lifters, Filers, Budgies, Droppers, Crossbyters, etc., and these may all pass under the general and common apellation of Rooks.
1675		Head Art of Wheedling 200: Rooks of all sorts, as Huffs, Setters, Biters.
1693		Poor Robin n.p.: A most plentiful crop [...] of hectors, trepanners, gilts, pads, biters, [...] all Newgate-birds, whom the devil prepares ready fitted for Tyburn, ready to drop into the hangman’s mouth [N].
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Bite the Biter, c. to Rob the Rogue, Sharp the Sharper, or Cheat the Cheater.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.

2. a confidence trickster.

1669		Nicker Nicked in Harleian Misc. II (1809) 108: There come in shoals of hectors, trepanners, gilts, pads, biters, prigs, divers.
1674		see sense 1.
c.1698		see sense 1.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 202: [...] Bite the Biter, that is, to rob the rogue, sharp the sharper, or cheat the cheater.
1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 13: He understanding his Trade as well as they did theirs, very ingeniously bit the Biters, and return’d them old-made-up Wigs for their new Hair.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 130: Your Wife is a Bite, Sir, says the Bucherly Villain, But I think I have bit the Biter.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		see sense 1.
1781		G. Parker View of Society II 179: However the biters may be bit.
1799		Sporting Mag. Aug. XIV 275/1: The second bargain was struck at six guineas and a half – this was considered as only biting the biter.
1812		W. Combe Doctor Syntax, Picturesque (1868) 69/1: Pray have you travell’d so far north, / To think we have so little wit, / As by such biters to be bit?
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London II 96: ‘The lucky hit was all a miss.’ ‘Yes, there was a Miss taken, and a Biter bit. Love is a lottery as well as life.’.
1837		‘A Blow-Out for Breakfast’ in Ri-tum Ti-tum Songster 43: Here is the biter bit.
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England II 239: It’s biter bit, and I don’t pity you one mossel.
1869		H. Smart Breezie Langton I 57: ‘It’s human nature, the biters grin and the bitten whine’.
1871		Galaxy (N.Y.) May 656: He may be as stupid a dolt as ever fell prey to the sharper, but yet has sense enough to know that his is only a case of the biter very savagely bitten, and that so far as intention is concerned he is many degrees more depraved than his city confederate.
1873		J. Mair Hbk of Phrases 10: Biter (The) Bit. One caught in his own snare [...] The man told the story, when the chancellor exclaimed, ‘It is the biter bit’.

3. an unpleasant, contemptible person.

1709		R. Steele Tatler No. 12 n.p.: A Biter, who is a dull Fellow, that tells you a Lye with a grave Face, and laughs at you for knowing him no better than to believe him.
1712		Spectator 504: A biter is one who tells you a thing you have no reason to disbelieve in itself, and perhaps has given you, before he bit you, no reason to disbelieve it for his saying it; and if you give him credit, laughs in your face, and triumphs that he has deceived you [F&H].
1905		E.W. Hornung A Thief in the Night (1992) 380: Ah, you biter, I wouldn’t soil my knuckles on your ugly face.

4. a cadger.

1851		R.S. Surtees Young Tom Hall 7: Hall [...] had had the offer of many other ‘bites’ beside Sloper’s — for escaping which he was more indebted to his own acuteness than to the candour of the would-be biters.
1860		Surtees Plain or Ringlets? (1926) 20: He didn’t care for [...] the recapitulation of Biter and Co’s bill.
1955		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Oct. 13/3: Ned looked the supplicant quizzically up and down and said, ‘Hmnn, have you ever bit me before?’ ‘No,’ beamed the biter confidently. ‘Well,’ replied the big bloke [...] ‘I ain’t puttin’ on no new customers!’.
1967		Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxvi 7/2: Outraged, biter leaps to his feet saying he couldn’t possibly take her money—how much has she got by the way.