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Antonyms for bat

Grammar : Noun
Spell : bat
Phonetic Transcription : bæt

Definition of bat

Origin :
  • "a stick, a club," Old English *batt "cudgel," perhaps from Celtic (cf. 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.
  • Phrase 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].
  • noun a hit with a solid object
Example sentences :
  • A bat circled near, indecisively, as if with a message it hesitated to give.
  • Extract from : « The Spenders » by Harry Leon Wilson
  • Run out the mile-an'-a-quarter, make a race of it, but don't go to the bat.
  • Extract from : « Thoroughbreds » by W. A. Fraser
  • So the man done it, and sure enough he was as blind as a bat in a minute.
  • Extract from : « Tom Sawyer Abroad » by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
  • You can no more be told how to go light than you can be told how to hit a ball with a bat.
  • Extract from : « The Forest » by Stewart Edward White
  • I've got such an awful lot of stuff that I want to dictate it right off the bat.
  • Extract from : « The Harbor » by Ernest Poole
  • A bat came flying about their heads, and Wrayson at last rose.
  • Extract from : « The Avenger » by E. Phillips Oppenheim
  • Thank heaven, the old man was as blind as a bat, and did not claim my acquaintance.
  • Extract from : « The Prisoner of Zenda » by Anthony Hope
  • What sped before them both was invisible to her but Bat was never baffled by it.
  • Extract from : « All Cats Are Gray » by Andre Alice Norton
  • The butterfly's motion is as irregular as any we have except the bat's.
  • Extract from : « The Meaning of Evolution » by Samuel Christian Schmucker
  • But I am like a bat in the dark, flying at gleams of light from closely-curtained windows.
  • Extract from : « The Eternal City » by Hall Caine

Synonyms for bat

Based on : Thesaurus.com - Gutenberg.org - Dictionary.com - Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019