Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BAST'ING, ppr.

Beating with a stick; moistening with dripping; sewing together with long stitches.

BAS'TION, n. [bas'chun; Fr. and Sp. bastion; It. bastione; probably from bastir, bâtir, to build, to set or found.]

A huge mass of earth, usually faced with sods, sometimes with brick, or stones, standing out from a rampart, of which it is a principal part; formerly called a bulwark. Bastions are solid or hollow. A flat bastion is made in the middle of the curtain, when it is too long to be defended by the bastions in its extremes. A cut bastion has its point cut off, and instead of it, a reentering angle, or an angle inward, with two points outward. A composed bastion has two sides of the interior polygon unequal, which makes the gorges unequal. A demibastion is composed of one face only, with one flank and a demigorge. A double bastion is one raised on the plane of another. – Encyc.

BAS'TO, n.

The ace of clubs at quadrille.

BAS'TON, or BA-TOON', n. [Sp. See Baste.]

In architecture, a round molding in the base of a column; called also a tore: [torus.] – Encyc.

BAT, n.¹ [Sax. bat; Ir. bat, bata; Russ. bot; allied to beat.]

1. A heavy stick or club; a piece of wood with one end thicker or broader than the other.
2. Bat or bate, a small copper coin of Germany, with a small mixture of silver, worth four crutzers. Also a coin of Switzerland, worth five livres. – Encyc.
3. A term given by miners to shale or bituminous shale. – Kirwan.
4. A mass of cotton prepared for filling quilts or comfortables.

BAT, n.² [Rab. and Tal. באות, באתא, or בואת. Buxtorf. I have not found this word in any European language, except in English.]

A race of quadrupeds, technically called Vespertilio, of the order Primates, in Linnæus's system. The fore feet have the toes connected by a membrane, expanded into a kind of wings, by means of which the animals fly. The species are numerous. Of these the vampire or Ternate bat inhabits Africa and the Oriental Isles. These animals fly in flocks from isle to isle, obscuring the sun by their numbers. Their wings when extended measure five or six feet. They live on fruits; but are said sometimes to draw blood from persons when asleep. The bats of the northern latitudes are small; they are viviparous and suckle their young. Their skin resembles that of a mouse. They enter houses in pleasant summer evenings, feed upon moths, flies, flesh, and oily substances, and are torpid during the winter. – Encyc.

BAT, v.i.

To manage a bat, or play with one. – Mason.

BAT'A-BLE, a. [See Bate and bate.]

Disputable. The land between England and Scotland, which, when the kingdoms were distinct, was a subject of contention, was called batable ground. – Cowel. Encyc.

BA-TA'TAS, n.

A species of tick or mite, found on the potatoes of Surinam. Also the Peruvian name of the sweet potatoe. – Encyc.

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.