Emily Dickinson Lexicon

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.