Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BA-TA'VI-AN, a. [from Batavi, the people who inhabited the isle.]

Pertaining to the isle of Betaw in Holland, between the Rhine and the Waal. But more generally, the word denotes what appertains to Holland in general.

BA-TA'VI-AN, n.

A native of Betaw, or of the Low Countries.

BATCH, n. [D. bakzel; G. gebäck; from bake.]

1. The quantity of bread baked at one time; a baking of bread.
2. Any quantity of a thing made at once, or so united as have like qualities. B. Jonson.

BATE, n. [Sax. bate, contention. It is probably from the root of beat. See Debate.]

Strife; contention; retained in make-bate.

BATE, v.i.

To grow or become less; to remit or retrench a part; with of. Abate thy speed and I will bate of mine. Dryden. Spenser uses bate in the sense of sinking, driving in, penetrating; a sense regularly deducible from that of beat, to thrust. Yet there the steel staid not, but inly bate / Deep in the flesh, and open'd wide a red flood gate.

BATE, v.t. [Fr. battre, to beat, to batter; but perhaps from abattre, to beat down. The literal sense is, to beat, strike, thrust; to force down. See Beat.]

To lessen by retrenching, deducting or reducing; as, to bate the wages of the laborer; to bate good cheer. Locke. Dryden. [We now use abate.]

BA-TEAU', n. [batto'. Fr. from L. batillum.]

A light boat, long in proportion to its breadth, and wider in the middle than at the ends.

BATE'-BREED-ING, a.

Breeding strife. [Not used.] Shak.

BATE'FUL, a.

Contentious; given to strife; exciting contention. Sidney.

BATE'LESS, a.

Not to be abated. Shak.

BATE'MENT, n.

Abatement; deduction; diminution. [Bate, with its derivatives, is, I believe, little used, or wholly obsolete in the United States.]

BAT'EN-ITES, or BAT'EN-ISTS, n. [or BA-TE'NI-ANS.]

A sect of apostates from Mohammedism, who professed the abominable practices of the Ismaelians and Kirmatians. The word signifies esoteric, or persons of inward light. [See Assassins.]

BAT'-FOWL-ER, n.

One who practices, or is pleased with bat-fowling. Barrington.

BAT'-FOWL-ING, n.

A mode of catching birds at night, by holding a torch or other light, and beating the bush or perch where they roost. The birds flying to the light are caught with nets or otherwise. Cowel. Encyc.

BAT'FUL, a. [See Batten.]

Rich, fertile, as land. [Not in use.] Mason.

BATH, n. [Sax. bæth, batho, a bath; bathian, to bathe; W. badh, or baz; D. G. Sw. Dan. bad, a bath; Ir. bath, the sea; Old Phrygian, bedu, water; Qu. W. bozi, to immerse.]

1. A place for bathing; a convenient vat or receptacle of water for persons to plunge or wash their bodies in. Baths are warm or tepid, hot or cold, more generally called warm and cold. They are also natural or artificial. Natural baths are those which consist of spring water, either hot or cold, which is often impregnated with iron, and called chalybeate, or with sulphur, carbonic acid, and other mineral qualities. These waters are often very efficacious in seorbutic, bilious, dyspeptic and other complaints.
2. A place in which heat is applied to a body immersed in some substance. Thus, A dry bath is made of hot sand, ashes, salt, or other matter, for the purpose of applying heat to a body immersed in them. A vapor bath is formed by filling an apartment with hot steam or vapor, in which the body sweats copiously, as in Russia; or the term is used for the application of hot steam to a diseased part of the body. Encyc. Tooke. A metalline bath is water impregnated with iron or other metallic substance, and applied to a diseased part. Encyc. In chimistry, a wet bath is formed by hot water, in which is placed a vessel containing the matter which requires a softer heat than the naked fire. In medicine, the animal bath is made by wrapping the part affected in a warm skin just taken from an animal. Coxe.
3. A house for bathing. In some eastern countries, baths are very magnificent edifices.
4. A Hebrew measure containing the tenth of a homer, or seven gallons and four pints, as a measure for liquids; and three pecks and three pints, as a dry measure. Calmet.

BAT'-HAUNT-ED, a.

Haunted with bats. Wordsworth.

BATHE, v.i.

To be or lie in a bath; to be in water, or in other liquid, or to be immersed in a fluid, as in a bath; as, to bathe in fiery floods. Shak.

BATHE, v.t. [Sax. bathian, to wash. See Bath. Qu. W. bozi, to immerse.]

1. To wash the body, or some part of it, by immersion, as in a bath: it often differs from ordinary washing in a longer application of water, to the body or to a particular part, as for the purpose of cleansing or stimulating the skin.
2. To wash or moisten, for the purpose of making soft and supple, or for cleansing, as a wound.
3. To moisten or suffuse with a liquid; as, to bathe in tears or blood.

BATH'ED, pp.

Washed as in a bath; moistened with a liquid; bedewed.

BATH'ER, n.

One who bathes; one who immerses himself in water, or who applies a liquid to himself or to another. Tooke.

BATH'ING, n.

The act of bathing, or washing the body in water. Mason.

BATH'ING, ppr.

Washing by immersion, or by applyiag a liquid; moistening; fomenting.

BATH'ING-TUB, n.

A vessel for bathing, usually made either of wood or tin. In the Royal Library at Paris, I saw a bathing tub of porphyry, of beautiful form and exquisite workmanship.

BA'THOS, n. [Gr. βαθος; allied to Eng. bottom, and perhaps to W. bozi, to immerse.]

The art of sinking in poetry. Arbuthnot.