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''batten'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125204041-00-⌔

batten - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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
    • ✤ 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, […]¹
  • (rare) To enrich or fertilize (land, soil, etc.).
    • ✤ [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; […]²
• (intransitive)
  • To become better; to improve in condition; especially of animals, by feeding; to fatten up. [from late 16th c.]
    • ✤ Synonyms: fleshen, stouten
    • ✤ No, let him batten; when his tongue/Once goes, a cat is not worse strung.³
    • ✤ 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.⁴
    • ✤ VVe eate our ovvne, and batten more,/Becauſe vve feed on no mans ſcore:/But pitie thoſe vvhoſe flanks grovv great,/Svvel’d vvith the Lard of others meat.⁵
    • ✤ Our vvomen batten vvell on their good-nature;/All they can rap and rend for the dear creature.⁶
    • ✤ 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.⁷
    • ✤ [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.⁸
  • Of land, soil, etc.: to become fertile; also, of plants: to grow lush.
  • (often passive voice) Followed by on: to eat greedily; to glut.
    • ✤ Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed,/And batten on this Moore?⁹
    • ✤ Follovv your Function, go, and batten on colde bits.¹⁰
    • ✤ As at full length the pamper’d Monarch lay,/Batt’ning in eaſe, and ſlumbring Life avvay/A ſpightful noiſe his dovvny Chains unties,/Haſtes forvvard, and encreaſes as it flies.¹¹
    • ✤ There hath he lain for ages and will lie/Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep, […]¹²
    • ✤ 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!¹³
    • ✤ 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.¹⁴
  • (figurative) Followed by on: to prosper or thrive, especially at the expense of others.
    • ✤ Robber barons who battened on the poor
    • ✤ There, in these Dens of Satan, […] do Sieur Motier’s mouchards consort and colleague; battening vampyre-like on a People next-door to starvation.¹⁵
  • (figurative) To gloat at; to revel in.
  • (figurative) To gratify a morbid appetite or craving.
    • ✤ [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!¹⁶
    • ✤ [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.¹⁷

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
  • ✤ 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.¹⁸

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.
    • ✤ The next morning, we took the battens from the hatches, and opened the ship.¹⁹
    • ✤ 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.²⁰
    • ✤ 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.²¹
  • (weaving) The movable bar of a loom, which strikes home or closes the threads of a woof.
    • ✤ Synonyms: beater, lathe

Verb

batten (third-person singular simple present battens, present participle battening, simple past and past participle battened) (transitive)

• To furnish (something) with battens (noun etymology 2, noun sense 1).
• (chiefly nautical) Chiefly followed by down: to fasten or secure (a hatch, opening, etc.) using battens (noun etymology 2, noun sense 2.2).
  • ✤ Antonym: unbatten
  • ✤ 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?²²

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈbæt(ə)n/
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (General American) enPR: băt’-n, IPA: /ˈbætən/, [-ɾən]
• Rhymes: -ætən
• Homophone: baton (one pronunciation)
• Hyphenation: bat‧ten

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”),²³ from Proto-Germanic ﹡batnaną (“to become better, improve”) (compare Old Norse bati (“advantage, improvement”), from Proto-Germanic ﹡batô (“improvement, recovery”)),²⁴ 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.²⁵

Etymology 2

🖼️ ➺

The gaps between the wooden planks of this stabbur, or granary on stilts, in Løvøy in Steigen, Nordland, Norway, are covered with battens (the protruding strips; noun sense 1).

🖼️ ➺

A batten (noun sense 2.1) holding the lighting equipment used to illuminate a theatre stage.

🖼️ ➺

Battens (noun sense 2.2) which are inserted into pockets sewn on sails to keep them flat.

The noun is from Middle English bataunt, batent (“finished bar or board (as for panelling)”),²⁶ 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”);²⁷ 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.²⁸

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1637 (date written; published 1638), John Milton, “Lycidas”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC, page 58: ↩

2. 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: […] ‎${}^{[1]}$, London: […] [William Hall] […] and are to be solde by Iohn Sudbury & Georg Humble, […], →OCLC, archived from the original on 15 July 2022, paragraph 6, page 69: ↩

3. c. 1588 (date written; published 1591), John Lyly, Endimion, the Man in the Moone. […], London: […] I[ohn] 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: ↩

4. 1614 November 10 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Beniamin Iohnson [i.e., Ben Jonson], Bartholmew Fayre: A Comedie, […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Robert Allot, […], published 1631, →OCLC, Act II, scene iii, page 21: ↩

5. 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[mas] Hunt, […], →OCLC, page 233: ↩

6. 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[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson, […], published 1760, →OCLC, page 349: ↩

7. 1687, [John Dryden], “[The First Part]”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC, page 22: ↩

8. 1791, Homer, “[The Iliad.] Book XXII.”, in W[illiam] Cowper, transl., The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume I, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 577, lines 106–109: ↩

9. 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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv], page 271, column 1: ↩

10. 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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v], page 22, column 1: ↩

11. 1699, [Samuel Garth], “Canto I”, in The Dispensary; a Poem, London: […] John Nutt […], →OCLC, page 5: ↩

12. 1830, Alfred Tennyson, “The Kraken”, in The Complete Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson, Chicago, Ill.: The Dominion Company, published 1897, →OCLC, page 8: ↩

13. 1850, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Prometheus Bound. From the Greek of Æschylus.”, in Poems. […], new edition, volume I, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 187: ↩

14. 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter XIV, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC, page 248: ↩

15. 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: ↩

16. 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[iam] Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC, Act I, scene iiii, page 461: ↩

17. 1870, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Courage”, in Society and Solitude. Twelve Chapters, Boston, Mass.: Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 247: ↩

18. 1627, John Speed, “Cornwall”, in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland Described and Abridged. […], London: […] Georg Humble […], →OCLC, signature [D6], verso, paragraph 3: ↩

19. 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: ↩

20. 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: ↩

21. 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: ↩

22. 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: ↩

23. “batten${}^2$, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩

24. “batten, v.${}^1$”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2023. ↩

25. “† batten, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2023. ↩

26. “bataunt, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

27. “batten${}^1$, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022; compare “batten, n.${}^1$”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2023. ↩

28. “batten, v.${}^2$”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2023; “batten${}^1$, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩

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