bat1 (bat)

[ A handsome bat he held, On which he leaned, as one farre in elde. Spenser, Mother Hub. Tale, 1. 217. 2. The wooden club with which the players in base-ball, cricket, and similar games bat or drive the ball. That used in base-ball is a round tapering stick of varying size and weight to suit the strength of the player; that used in cricket is shaped somewhat like the broad end of an oar, and is provided with a round handle. 3. A batsman or batter. W. is the best bat left. T. Hughes, Tom Brown's School-Days, ii. 8. 4. A blow as with a bat or baton: as, he received a bat in the face. [Colloq.] -5. A tool made of beech, used by plumbers in dre ing and flatting sheet-lead.-6. A rammer used by founders.-7. A blade used for beating or scutching hemp or flax.-8. A piece of brick having one end entire; hence, any portion of a brick; a brickbat.-9. A kind of sun-dried brick. Southey.-10. Shale; Shale; hardened clay, but not fire-clay: same as bind, 2. Penn. Surv. Glo ary. Also spelled batt.-11. In hat -mak ing, a felted ma of fur, or of hair and wool. Two such ma es are required to form the body of a hat. Also spelled batt. One half of the intended hat, called a bat , is bowed at a time. J. Thomson , Hats and Felting, p. 39. 12. A continuous wad of cotton from the batting-machine, ready for carding; also, a sheet of cotton wadding or batting. See bat ting.-13. In ceram.: (a) A flexible sheet of gelatin used in transferring impre ions to the biscuit. ... Batt or bat is a plate of gelatine, used in printing on to pottery or porcelain, over the glaze. In bat-printing, the impre ion is transferred from an engraved copper plate to a bat of gelatine or glue, whence it is printed on the glaze, in oil or Enamel powder being then dusted over the print, adheres to the oiled surface, and the porcelain is then fired at a low temperature. Ure , Dict., I. 298. 472 nocturnal and crepuscular, pa ing most of the daytime in dusky retreats, where they gather sometimes in almost incredible multitudes, and generally repose hanging head downward by their hind feet. In size they range from le than the size of a mouse to large forms with some five feet spread of wing. The body is usually softly furry; the wings are membranous and naked. The great majority Hoary Bat (Lasiurus pruinosus). are insectivorous and carnivorous, and constitute the suborder Animal i vor a or Insect i vor a; of these, a few prey upon other bats, and some, of the genera Desmodus and Diphylla, suck the blood of large animals; but the great bats of South America called vampires are chiefly frugivorous. See Desmodontes, Vampyri. The old-world fruit-bats, flying-foxes, or rou ettes are mostly large species, constituting the family Pteropodidæ and suborder Frugivora. See cut under flying - for. The physiognomy of many of the bats is grotesque, owing to the extraordinary appendages of the snout, especially in the families Rhinolophidæ and Phyllos tom a tidæ, or horseshoe bats and leaf-nosed bats. The ears, too, are often of great size and much complexity of detail, and, like the various appendages of the face, and the wing-membranes themselves, serve as tactile organs of extreme delicacy, even to the extent of sensing objects without actual contact. The wings of bats are commonly given to representations of evil genii and demons, as those of birds are attached to good Egyptian monu angels one of the fainted ments is one of the fruit-bats, the Cynonycteris ægyptiaca. The Hebrew name of the bat of the Old Testament, atal leph, is now used in the form Atalapha for a genus of American States are the bats. small The brownies commonest species of the at United the red bat, Lasiurus noveboracensis. Among European species may be noted the serotine ( Vespertilio serotinus ), the pipistrelle ( V. pipistrellus ), the barbastel ( Barbastel lus communis ), the oreillard ( Plecotus auritus ), and the horseshoe bats ( Rhinolophus hippos i deros and R. ferroe quinum ). In heraldry the bat is always represented displayed, that is, with the wings opened, and is often called by its older name reremouse. - Bat's wing, in an at. See ala vesper til i on is, under ala. - Bat's-wing burner. See burner. - Bulldog bats, the molo oid chiropterans. See Molo us. - Harlequin bat. See harlequin. bat3 (bat), v. t. [Variant of batel, prob. now taken in allusion to the eyes of a bat.] To bate or flutter, as in the phrase to bat the eyes, that is, wink. [Prov. Eng. and U. S.] You hol' your head high; don't you bat your eyes to please none of 'em. The Century , XXVII. 146. (b) A shelf or slab of baked clay used to support pieces of biscuit which have been painted, and are being fired again. See enamel -kiln.14. Rate; speed; style. [Scotch and prov. Eng.]-At the bat, in the position of the batter or batot (bat), n. See batz. striker in base-ball and similar games; having the right bat6 (bat), n. [Hind. bat, a weight, a measure to wield the bat. - To carry one's bat. See carry. To of weight.] Same as tical. bat4 (bat or bâ), n. [F. bát, go on a bat, to go off for a drunken carousal or spree. bat1 (bat), v.; pret. and pp. batted, ppr. batting. [ but mi . II. in trans. In base - ball and similar games, to strike the ball: as, he bats well. To bat at, to attempt unsucce fully to knock, as a ball; strike at bat2 (bat), n. [A corruption of earlier back , bak , Sc. back , bak (also bakie - bird , bawkie -bird), a bat, bakke , backe , bakke , in comp. aftenbakke , evening-bat, = OSw. bakka , in comp. natt - bakka , night-jar, Sw. dial. nattabatta , natt black a , = Icel. blaka , in comp. ledhr - blaka , bat, lit. leather-flapper, blaka , flutter, flap. The orig. form is uncertain. Cf. ML. blatt a , blacta , batta , a bat, another application of L. blatt a , an insect that shuns the light, a cockroach: see Blattal. For the change of k to t, cf. E. make2 = mate1, and E. crane =Dan. trane, Sw. trana, Icel. trani. The AS. name of the bat is hrēremūs, > E. reremouse. The G. name is fledermaus; cf. E. flittermouse.] A wing-handed, wing-footed flying mammal, of the order Chiropter a (which see). The species are upward of 450 in number, nearly cosmopolitan, but largest, most varied in character, most abundant in individuals in tropical and subtropical countries. The species of temperate countries, as of the United States and Europe, are comparatively few, small, bat7, n. A measure of land formerly used in South Wales; a perch of 11 feet square. batst, n. Same as bath2 . batablet (bā'ta-bl), a. [Also bateable ; short for debatable , as bates for debate . See debatable .] A shortened form of debatable , as in batable ground, batable land. See debatable. As we cro ed the Batable land. Border ballad . Obsolete forms of batailet, bataillert, etc. battlel, battler1, etc. batara (bà-tä'rä), n. [S. Amer.] A name of sundry bush-shrikes or formic aroid pa erine birds of South America, of the subfamily Tham no phi line and family Formicariida; specifically, the Thamnophilus cinereus (Vieillot). It was used as a generic name by Le on in 1831, and by Sclater in 1858, to distinguish the last-named species generically from other Thamnophilinæ, under the name Batara cinerea; also by Temminck, 1820, as a generic name of species of Thamnophilus proper. batardeau (ba-tär-dō'), n.; pl. batardeaux (-doz'). [F., dike, dam, coffer-dam, formerly bastard eau , dim. of OF. bastard , dike, perhaps connected with bastir , build.] 1. A coffer-dam; a casing of piles made water-tight, fixed in the bed of a river to exclude the water from the site of the pier or other work while it is being constructed.-2. In fort . , a wall, generally fur nished with a sluice-gate, built acro a moat or ditch, to retain the water in those parts of the ditch which require to be inundated. batata (ba-tä'tä), n. [Sp. Pg. batata, and of such uniform characters that they give little idea of the extent and diversity of the order in warmer regions. Bats are the most aerial or volitant of all animals, even more so than birds or insects, for they have scarcely any other means of locomotion than flying. They are The products of both China and Japan are here [Loochoo] cultivated, especially batatas and the sugar-cane. J. J. Rein , Japan (trans.), p. 532. bate