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, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
The verb is derived from Middle English *battenen, *batnen, of North Germanic origin, probably from Old Norse batna (“to grow better, improve, recover”), from Proto-Germanic *batnaną (“to become better, improve”) (compare Old Norse bati (“advantage, improvement”), from Proto-Germanic *batô (“improvement, recovery”)), from *bataz (“good”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰed- (“good”). Compare battle (“(adjective) improving; fattening, nutritious; fertile, fruitful; (verb) to feed or nourish; to render (land, etc.) fertile or fruitful”) (obsolete).
The adjective is probably derived from the verb.
Verb
batten (third-person singular simple present battens, present participle battening, simple past and past participle battened)
- (transitive, obsolete)
- To cause (an animal, etc.) to become fat or thrive through plenteous feeding; to fatten.
- Synonyms: fleshen, stouten
1637, John Milton, “Lycidas”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, , London: Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, , published 1646, →OCLC, page 58:VVe drove a field, and both together heard / VVhat time the Gray-fly vvinds her ſultry horn, / Batt'ning our flocks vvith the freſh devvs of night, […]
- (rare) To enrich or fertilize (land, soil, etc.).
1612 (indicated as 1611), John Speed, “Stafford-shire”, in The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine: Presenting an Exact Geography of the Kingdomes of England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Iles Adioyning: , London: and are to be solde by Iohn Sudbury & Georg Humble, , →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-07-15, paragraph 6, page 69:[O]thers [i.e., rivers] ariſing and running thorovv this Shire, doe ſo batten the ground, that the Medovves euen in the midſt of VVinter grovv greene; […]
- (intransitive)
- To become better; to improve in condition; especially of animals, by feeding; to fatten up.
- Synonyms: fleshen, stouten
c. 1588 (date written; published 1591), John Lyly, Endimion, the Man in the Moone , London: I Charlewood, for the widdowe Broome, →OCLC; republished George P[ierce] Baker, editor, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, 1894, →OCLC, Act III, scene iii, page 50, lines 1126–1127:No, let him batten; when his tongue / Once goes, a cat is not worse strung.
1614 November 10 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Beniamin Iohnson [i.e., Ben Jonson], Bartholmew Fayre: A Comedie, , London: I B for Robert Allot, , published 1631, →OCLC, Act II, scene iii, page 21:Like enough, Sir, ſhee'll doe forty ſuch things in an houre (an you liſten to her) for her recreation, if the toy take her i'the greaſie kerchiefe: it makes her fat you ſee. Shee battens vvith it.
1648, Robert Herrick, “ His Content in the Country.”, in Hesperides: Or, The Works both Humane & Divine , London: John Williams, and Francis Eglesfield, and are to be sold by Tho Hunt, , →OCLC; republished as Henry G. Clarke, editor, Hesperides, or Works both Human and Divine, volume I, London: H. G. Clarke and Co., , 1844, →OCLC, page 233:We eat our own, and batten more, / Because we feed on no man's score; / But pity those whose flanks grow great, / Swell'd with the lard of other's meat.
1684, John Dryden, “Prologue to the Dissappointment: Or, The Mother in Fashion. [By Mr. [Thomas] Southerne, 1684.] Spoken by Mr. [Thomas] Betterton.”, in The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, , volume II, London: J and R Tonson, , published 1760, →OCLC, page 349:Our vvomen batten vvell on their good-nature; / All they can rap and rend for the dear creature.
1687, [John Dryden], “”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: Jacob Tonson , →OCLC, page 22:Sure he preſum'd of praiſe, vvho came to ſtock / Th' etherial paſtures vvith ſo fair a flock; / Burniſh'd, and bat'ning on their food, to ſhovv / The diligence of carefull herds belovv.
1791, Homer, W[illiam] Cowper, transl., “[The Iliad.] Book XXII.”, in The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, , volume I, London: J Johnson, , →OCLC, page 577, lines 106–109:[S]ome fell ſerpent in his cave expects / The traveller's approach, batten'd vvith herbs / Of baneful juice to fury, forth he looks / Hideous, and lies coil'd all around his den.
- Of land, soil, etc.: to become fertile; also, of plants: to grow lush.
- (often passive voice) Followed by on: to eat greedily; to glut.
c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 271, column 1:Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed, / And batten on this Moore?
c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 22, column 1:Follovv your Function, go, and batten on colde bits.
1699, [Samuel Garth], “Canto I”, in The Dispensary: A Poem. , 2nd edition, London: John Nutt , →OCLC, page 6:As at full length the pamper'd Monarch lay, / Batt'ning in Eaſe, and ſlumb'ring Life avvay: / A ſpightful Noiſe his dovvny Chains unties, / Haſtes forvvard, and encreaſes as it flies.
1830, Alfred Tennyson, “The Kraken”, in The Complete Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson, Chicago, Ill.: The Dominion Company, published 1897, →OCLC, page 8:There hath he lain for ages and will lie / Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep, […]
1850, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Prometheus Bound. From the Greek of Æschylus.”, in Poems. , new edition, volume I, London: Chapman & Hall, , →OCLC, page 187:The strong carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down / To meet thee,—self-called to a daily feast,— / And set his fierce beak in thee, and tear off / The long rags of thy flesh, and batten deep / Upon thy dusky liver!
1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter XIV, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London, New York, N.Y., Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC, page 248:The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving masks.
- (figurative) Followed by on: to prosper or thrive, especially at the expense of others.
Robber barons who battened on the poor
1837, Thomas Carlyle, “The Wakeful”, in The French Revolution: A History , volume II (The Constitution), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book III (The Tuileries), page 108:There, in these Dens of Satan, […] do Sieur Motier's mouchards consort and colleague; battening vampyre-like on a People next-door to starvation.
- (figurative) To gloat at; to revel in.
- (figurative) To gratify a morbid appetite or craving.
1605 (first performance), Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Volpone, or The Foxe. A Comœdie. ”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: Will Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC, Act I, scene iiii, page 461:[H]opes he may / VVith charmes, like Æson, haue his youth reſtor'd: / And vvith theſe thoughts ſo battens, as if fate / VVould be as eaſily cheated on, as he, / And all turnes aire!
1870, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Courage”, in Society and Solitude. Twelve Chapters, Boston, Mass.: Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 247:[T]here are sceptics with a taste for carrion who batten on the hideous facts in history, – persecutions, inquisitions, St. Bartholomew massacres, devilish lives, Nero, Cæsar, Borgia, Marat, Lopez, – men in whom every ray of humanity was extinguished, parricides, matricides, and whatever moral monsters.
Conjugation
Derived terms
Translations
to become better; to improve in condition
especially of animals: to improve in condition by feeding
— see also fatten up
of land, soil, etc.: to become fertile
- Finnish: viljavoitua
- Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
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of plants: to grow lush
- Finnish: vihannoida
- Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
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to eat greedily
— see glut
to prosper or thrive, especially at the expense of others
to gratify a morbid appetite or craving
Adjective
batten (comparative more batten, superlative most batten)
- (obsolete) Synonym of battle (“of grass or pasture: nutritious to cattle or sheep; of land (originally pastureland) or soil: fertile, fruitful”)
- (of land or soil): Synonym: (dialectal or obsolete) batful
1627, John Speed, “Cornwall”, in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland Described and Abridged. , London: Georg Humble , →OCLC, signature , verso, paragraph 3:The Soile for the moſt part is lifted vp into many hilles, parted aſunder vvith narrovv and ſhort vallies, and a ſhallovv earth doth couer their out-ſide, vvhich by a Sea-vveede called Orevvood, and a certaine kinde of fruitfull Sea-ſand, they make ſo ranke and batten, as is vncredible.
Etymology 2
The noun is from Middle English bataunt, batent (“finished bar or board (as for panelling)”), from Old French batent (“a beating”), a noun use of the present participle form of batre (“to beat, hit, strike”), from Late Latin battere, the present active infinitive of battō (“to beat”), from Latin battuō (“(very rare) to beat, hit, strike”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰedʰ-, *bʰedʰh₂- (“to pierce; to stab”) or *bʰat- (“to hit”), ultimately onomatopoeic.
The verb is derived from the noun.
Noun
batten (plural battens)
- (carpentry, construction) A plank or strip of wood, or several of such strips arranged side by side, used in construction to hold members of a structure together, to provide a fixing point, to strengthen, or to prevent warping.
- Hyponyms: counterlath, (Australia) dropper, jackstay, studding
- (specifically)
- A strip of wood holding a number of lamps; especially (theater), one used for illuminating a stage; (by extension, also attributive) a long bar, usually metal, affixed to the ceiling or fly system and used to support curtains, scenery, etc.
- (nautical) A long, narrow strip, originally of wood but now also of fibreglass, metal, etc., used for various purposes aboard a ship; especially one attached to a mast or spar for protection, one holding down the edge of a tarpaulin covering a hatch to prevent water from entering the hatch, one inserted in a pocket sewn on a sail to keep it flat, or one from which a hammock is suspended.
1840, R[ichard] H[enry] D[ana], Jr., chapter XXIX, in Two Years before the Mast. (Harper’s Family Library; no. CVI), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers , →OCLC, page 326:The next morning, we took the battens from the hatches, and opened the ship.
1840, [Frederick] Marryat, “In which, Like Most People, who Tell Their Own Stories, I Begin with the Histories of Other People”, in Poor Jack. , London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, , →OCLC, page 6:She was too sick to get out of bed, and he was not able to hoist her up without assistance; […] we were permitted to come in and hoist her ladyship up again to the battens.
1972 September 1, “Basic Construction of Small Boats and Ships”, in Marine Crewman’s Handbook (Technical Manual; 55-501), Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, Department of the Army, →OCLC, section II (The Construction of Small Boats), page 12-3:In carvel construction, the planks which cover the sides of the vessel lie alongside one another without overlapping and the seams are calked. Where the construction is too light to admit calking, a narrow batten or ribband is run along the seams inside.
- (weaving) The movable bar of a loom, which strikes home or closes the threads of a woof.
Alternative forms
Derived terms
Translations
plank or strip of wood, or several of such strips arranged side by side, used in construction to hold members of a structure together, etc.
- Arabic: فَسْقِيَّة f (fasqiyya), فِسْقِيَّة f (fisqiyya)
- Bulgarian: дъска́ (bg) f (dǎská)
- Chinese:
- Mandarin: 壓條/压条 (zh) (yātiáo), 壓枝/压枝 (zh) (yāzhī)
- Czech: lajsna f (slang), lať (cs) f, lišta (cs) f, tes m
- Esperanto: lato (eo)
- Finnish: lista (fi), puulista (wooden), rima (fi), soiro (fi), tukipuu (fi) (for support), vuorilista
- French: volige (fr) f
- Galician: pértega (gl) f, fieira f
- German: Dachlatte (de) f, Diele (de) f, Latte (de) f, Leiste (de) f
- Alemannic German: Schiie (Uri)
- Hawaiian: ʻaho lolo
- Hebrew: שְׂחִיף (he) m
- Hungarian: deszka (hu), hézagtakaró, hézagtakaró léc, palló (hu), szegélyléc (hu), léc (hu)
- Italian: corrente (it) m, lapazza (it) f, tavolone m
- Latvian: dēlis (lv) m
- Macedonian: шти́ца f (štíca), ле́тва f (létva)
- Malay: kasau (ms), kayu tetulang, papan lantai
- Manx: claare f
- Maori: kaho, pātene, tūmatahuki
- Northern Sami: bielka
- Norwegian:
- Bokmål: labank m
- Nynorsk: hekte f (for roofs), taklekte (for roofs)
- Polish: łata (pl) f, listwa (pl) f
- Romanian: liț n
- Russian: доска́ (ru) f (doská), ла́та (ru) f (láta) (regional), дра́нка (ru) f (dránka), пла́нка (ru) f (plánka), ре́йка (ru) f (réjka) (shingle), тёс (ru) m (tjos)
- Serbo-Croatian:
- Cyrillic: ши̑ндра f
- Roman: šȋndra (sh) f
- Sicilian: lapazza (scn) f
- Silesian: lajsta f
- Spanish: alfarda (es) f, barreta (es) f, listón (es) m, ristrel (es) m
- Ubykh: қауар (kawar)
- Ukrainian: тес m (tes)
- Vilamovian: łȧjst f
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strip of wood holding a number of lamps; especially (theater), one used for illuminating a stage
long bar affixed to the ceiling or fly system and used to support curtains, etc.
- Finnish: tanko (fi)
- Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
- Polish: sztankiet m
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long, narrow strip used for various purposes aboard a ship
Verb
batten (third-person singular simple present battens, present participle battening, simple past and past participle battened) (transitive)
- To furnish (something) with battens (noun sense 1).
- (chiefly nautical) Chiefly followed by down: to fasten or secure (a hatch, opening, etc.) using battens (noun sense 2.2).
- Antonym: unbatten
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Life-buoy”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 580:Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay over the same with pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the snap-spring over the ship's stern. Were ever such things done before with a coffin?
Derived terms
Translations
to furnish (something) with battens
to fasten or secure (a hatch, etc.) using battens
References
- ^ “batten2, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- ^ “batten, v.1”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2023.
- ^ “† batten, adj.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2023.
- ^ “bataunt, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
- ^ “batten1, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022; compare “batten, n.1”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2023.
- ^ “batten, v.2”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2023; “batten1, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading
German
Alternative forms
Etymology
Debated. A comparable form is synonymous Dutch baten, which pertains to the Germanic root at hand in English batten and better. At least a secondary relation with this Dutch verb seems certain. However, its regular cognate is Old High German bazzen (“to batten”), which would have led to modern *bassen, bässen. Mere borrowing from Low German or Dutch is unlikely since the verb has -t- in western Upper German and a corresponding -d- in many dialects of West Central German. Possibly two distinct roots have been merged.
Verb
batten (weak, third-person singular present battet, past tense battete, past participle gebattet, auxiliary haben)
- (obsolete, western Germany) to be useful, to be of use, to help
- Synonyms: nutzen, nützen
Conjugation
Conjugation of
batten (
weak, auxiliary
haben)
1Rare except in very formal contexts; alternative in würde normally preferred.
Composed forms of
batten (
weak, auxiliary
haben)