What is "bat"

Bat \Bat\, n. [Corrupt. from OE. back, backe, balke; cf. Dan. aften-bakke (aften evening), Sw. natt-backa (natt night), Icel. le[eth]r-blaka (le[eth]r leather), Icel. blaka to flutter.] (Zo["o]l.) One of the Chiroptera, an order of flying mammals, in which the wings are formed by a membrane stretched between the elongated fingers, legs, and tail. The common bats are small and insectivorous. See Chiroptera and Vampire.

Silent bats in drowsy clusters cling.
--Goldsmith.

Bat tick (Zo["o]l.), a wingless, dipterous insect of the genus Nycteribia, parasitic on bats. [1913 Webster] ||

Bat \Bat\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Batted (b[a^]t"t[e^]d); p. pr. & vb. n. Batting.] To strike or hit with a bat or a pole; to cudgel; to beat.
--Holland.

Bat \Bat\, v. i. To use a bat, as in a game of baseball; when used with a numerical postmodifier it indicates a baseball player's performance (as a decimal) at bat; as, he batted .270 in 1993 (i.e. he got safe hits in 27 percent of his official turns at bat).

Bat \Bat\ (b[a^]t), n. [OE. batte, botte, AS. batt; perhaps fr. the Celtic; cf. Ir. bat, bata, stick, staff; but cf. also F. batte a beater (thing), wooden sword, battre to beat.]

1. A large stick; a club; specifically, a piece of wood with one end thicker or broader than the other, used in playing baseball, cricket, etc.

2. In badminton, tennis, and similar games, a racket.

3. A sheet of cotton used for filling quilts or comfortables; batting.

4. A part of a brick with one whole end; a brickbat.

5. (Mining) Shale or bituminous shale.
   --Kirwan.

6. A stroke; a sharp blow. [Colloq. or Slang]

7. A stroke of work. [Scot. & Prov. Eng.]

8. Rate of motion; speed. [Colloq.] ``A vast host of fowl . . . making at full bat for the North Sea.''
   --Pall Mall Mag.

9. A spree; a jollification. [Slang, U. S.]

10. Manner; rate; condition; state of health. [Scot. & Prov. Eng.]

    Bat bolt (Machinery), a bolt barbed or jagged at its butt or tang to make it hold the more firmly.
    --Knight.

Bat \Bat\, v. t. & i.

1. To bate or flutter, as a hawk. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.]

2. To wink. [Local, U. S. & Prov Eng.]

Bat \Bat\, n. [Siamese.] Same as Tical, n., 1.

"a stick, a club," Old English *batt "cudgel," perhaps from Celtic (compare Irish and Gaelic bat, bata "staff, cudgel"), influenced by Old French batte, from Late Latin battre "beat;" all from PIE root *bhat- "to strike." Also "a lump, piece" (mid-14c.), as in brickbat. As a kind of paddle used to play cricket, it is attested from 1706.\n

\nPhrase right off the bat is 1888, also hot from the bat (1888), probably a baseball metaphor, but cricket is possible as a source; there is an early citation from Australia (in an article about slang): "Well, it is a vice you'd better get rid of then. Refined conversation is a mark of culture. Let me hear that kid use slang again, and I'll give it to him right off the bat. I'll wipe up the floor with him. I'll
---" ["The Australian Journal," November 1888].

flying mammal (order Chiroptera), 1570s, a dialectal alteration of Middle English bakke (early 14c.), which is probably related to Old Swedish natbakka, Old Danish nathbakkæ "night bat," and Old Norse leðrblaka "leather flapper" (for connections outside Germanic, see flagellum). If so, the original sense of the animal name likely was "flapper." The shift from -k- to -t- may have come through confusion of bakke with Latin blatta "moth, nocturnal insect."\n

\nOld English word for the animal was hreremus, from hreran "to shake" (see rare (adj.2)), and rattle-mouse is attested from late 16c., an old dialectal word for "bat." Flitter-mouse (1540s) is occasionally used in English (variants flinder-mouse, flicker-mouse) in imitation of German fledermaus "bat," from Old High German fledaron "to flutter."\n

\nAs a contemptuous term for an old woman, perhaps a suggestion of witchcraft (compare fly-by-night), or from bat as "prostitute who plies her trade by night" [Farmer, who calls it "old slang" and finds French equivalent "night swallow" (hirondelle de nuit) "more poetic"].

"to move the eyelids," 1847, American English, from earlier sense of "flutter as a hawk" (1610s), a variant of bate (v.2) on the notion of fluttering wings. Related: Batted; batting.

"to hit with a bat," mid-15c., from bat (n.1). Related: Batted; batting.

acr. best available technology; a principle applying to regulation on limiting pollutant discharge.

1. n. nocturnal mouselike mammal with forelimbs modified to form membranous wings and anatomical adaptations for echolocation by which they navigate [syn: chiropteran]

2. (baseball) a turn batting; "he was at bat when it happened"; "he got 4 hits in 4 at-bats" [syn: at-bat]

3. a small racket with a long handle used for playing squash [syn: squash racket, squash racquet]

4. a bat used in playing cricket [syn: cricket bat]

5. a club used for hitting a ball in various games

6. [also: batting, batted]

1. v. strike with, or as if with a baseball bat; "bat the ball"

2. wink briefly; "bat one's eyelids" [syn: flutter]

3. have a turn at bat; "Jones bats first, followed by Martinez"

4. use a bat; "Who's batting?"

5. beat thoroughly in a competition or fight; "We licked the other team on Sunday!" [syn: clobber, drub, thrash, lick]

6. [also: batting, batted]

A bat is a flying mammal of the order Chiroptera.

Bat or The Bat may also refer to:

Bat was a cow goddess in Egyptian mythology depicted as a human face with cow ears and horns. By the time of the Middle Kingdom, her identity and attributes were subsumed within the goddess Hathor.

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera (; from the - cheir, "hand" and - pteron, "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, can only glide for short distances. Bats do not flap their entire forelimbs, as birds do, but instead flap their spread-out digits, which are very long and covered with a thin membrane or patagium.

Bats are the second largest order of mammals (after the rodents), representing about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with about 1,240 bat species divided into two suborders: the less specialized and largely fruit-eating megabats, or flying foxes, and the highly specialized and echolocating microbats. About 70% of bat species are insectivores. Most of the rest are frugivores, or fruit eaters. A few species, such as the fish-eating bat, feed from animals other than insects, with the vampire bats being hematophagous, or feeding on blood.

Bats are present throughout most of the world, with the exception of extremely cold regions. They perform the vital ecological roles of pollinating flowers and dispersing fruit seeds; many tropical plant species depend entirely on bats for the distribution of their seeds. Bats are economically important, as they consume insect pests, reducing the need for pesticides. The smallest bat is the Kitti's hog-nosed bat, measuring in length, across the wings and in mass. It is also arguably the smallest extant species of mammal, with the Etruscan shrew being the other contender. The largest species of bat are a few species of Pteropus (fruit bats or flying foxes) and the giant golden-crowned flying fox with a weight up to and wingspan up to .

The ASM-N-2 Bat was a United States Navy World War II radar-guided glide bomb which was used in combat beginning in April 1944.

The Bat is a Vekoma Suspended Family Coaster located at Lagoon Amusement Park in Farmington, Utah, United States.

The bat as a heraldic symbol is primarily represented in the coats of arms of certain important towns of the former Crown of Aragon. It appears mostly at the top, above the crown over the shield.