Bat Meaning
/bæt/Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounAny flying mammal of the order Chiroptera, usually small and nocturnal, insectivorous or frugivorous.
nounAn old woman.
Sentence Examples
A bat flying in the sky looks like a butterfly.
Without his glasses, he is as blind as a bat.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
He swung the wooden ____ hard and hit the baseball over the fence.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The baseball player swung his wooden ____ at the fast moving ball today.
Word Origin & History
Dialectal variant (akin to dialectal Swedish natt-batta) of Middle English bakke, balke, of North Germanic origin. Perhaps compare Old Norse (leðr)blaka (literally “(leather) flapper”), from leðr + blaka (“to flap”). Compare Old Swedish natbakka, Old Danish nathbakkæ.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day."
— 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01:
""Isn't it lovely?" I smiled and thought: "Yes it is. It's also a Blackbird, you silly old bat!"
— 2000, Bill Oddie, Gripping Yarns, page 196:
"bituminous shale ; which miners , if I mistake not , call bat"
— 1799, Richard Kirwan, Geological Essays:
"On starting, The Nun led at a very slow pace for a quarter of a mile, when the Shrigley colt made running at a good bat."
— 1842, Sporting Magazine, page 251:
"a vast host of fowl […] making at full bat for the North Sea."
— 1898, unknown author, Pall Mall Magazine:
Explore More A2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
He swung the wooden ____ hard and hit the baseball over the fence.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The baseball player swung his wooden ____ at the fast moving ball today.