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Bat   /bæt/   Listen
Bat

verb
(past & past part. batted; pres. part. batting)
1.
Strike with, or as if with a baseball bat.
2.
Wink briefly.  Synonym: flutter.
3.
Have a turn at bat.
4.
Use a bat.
5.
Beat thoroughly and conclusively in a competition or fight.  Synonyms: clobber, cream, drub, lick, thrash.



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"Bat" Quotes from Famous Books



... wiping away the really starting tears with her white lace cloak. "I told you the elegant Constantine was the lord of my heart; and you have seduced him from me! Till you came, he was so respectful, so tender, so devoted! Bat I am rightly used! I ought to have carried my ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... come the road-kids, sporting an infinite variety of monicas. For example, the following, whom here and there I have encountered: Buck Kid, Blind Kid, Midget Kid, Holy Kid, Bat Kid, Swift Kid, Cookey Kid, Monkey Kid, Iowa Kid, Corduroy Kid, Orator Kid (who could tell how it happened), and Lippy Kid (who was insolent, ...
— The Road • Jack London

... has a rear-guard, and it is that which must be blamed. Bat-like creatures, half brigands and lackeys; all the sorts of vespertillos that that twilight called war engenders; wearers of uniforms, who take no part in the fighting; pretended invalids; formidable limpers; interloping sutlers, trotting ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... George Washington, vol. 1, p. 140, New York, 1949. Washington had written his brother John on June 14 and given his opinion that they should "retrench the wagons and increase the number of bat horses."] ...
— Conestoga Wagons in Braddock's Campaign, 1755 • Don H. Berkebile

... as blind as a bat!' commented Elizabeth. 'Can't you see she's doin' that to 'ide 'er feelings—so that you'll never guess 'ow 'er 'eart is ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick

... this room many years ago, Jane, and I wish things to be as he left them. Yes, even this cricket bat that I have just found in the attic. He used to have it in the corner by the fireplace, and I wish you to ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre

... answered. "It has a number, but we call it the ball-bat because it's shaped like a ball and goes like a bat. We were about to take off for some test runs around the space platform when we got a hurry call to come here. The Aquila has two of these. If they prove out, they'll replace the snapper-boats. More ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin

... rustling and scurrying all about you. Numerous tenants who pay no rent have heard eviction notice, for the house in which no men live is the abode of many races. Another blow near another nail, and more shingles jump and flee, and this time a clammy hand slaps your face. It is only the wing of a bat, fluttering in dismay from his crevice. Blow after blow you drive upon this board from beneath, till all the nails are loose, its shingle-fetters outside snap, and with a surge it rises, to fall grating down the roof, and land with a crash on the ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... has acquainted us, that of the "Garrison" kneeling to England on the necks of the Irish poor. In this perversion, which under autonomy would have been impossible, we find the explanation of the extreme savagery of Union land policy in Ireland. Its extreme, its bat-eyed obtuseness is to be explained in another way. Souchon in his introduction to the French edition of Philippovich, the great Austrian economist, observes with great truth that England has not even yet developed any sort of Agrarpolitik, that is to say ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... Hamburgered by a real, live college fraternity? I mean, were you ever initiated into full brotherhood by a Greek-letter society with the aid of a baseball bat, a sausage-making machine, a stick of dynamite and a corn-sheller? What's that? You say you belong to the Up-to-Date Wood-choppers and have taken the josh degree in the Noble Order of Prong-Horned Wapiti? Forget it. Those aren't initiations. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... again he struck him; and his evil soul fled forth, and went down to Hades squeaking, like a bat into ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... similar substance, declaring that it is very efficacious, and get a Tarahumare to pay a high price for it. But whatever means are employed, one way or the other, there is always a counter-remedy to offset its effect. Specially potent is the blood of the turtle and the bat, stirred together, dried, and mixed with a little tobacco, which is then rolled into a cigar and smoked. Hikuli and the dried head of an eagle or a crow may be worn under ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... to a query, "whether the vampire of India and that of South America be of one species," Mr. Waterton replies, "I beg to say that I consider them distinct species. I have never yet seen a bat from India with a membrane rising perpendicularly from the end of its nose; nor have I ever been able to learn that bats in India suck animals, though I have questioned many people on this subject. I could only find two species of bats in Guiana, with a membrane rising ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various

... length his hair was seen to rise and stand on end," and then he plunged forward to the attack.[11] The hair likewise becomes erect on goats, and, as I hear from Mr. Blyth, on some Indian antelopes. I have seen it erected on the hairy Ant-eater; and on the Agouti, one of the Rodents. A female Bat,[12] which reared her young under confinement, when any one looked into the cage "erected the fur on her back, and bit viciously at ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... stand between two enormous corporals, who swiped at everything and had luck enough for two whole teams. The house team followed with seventy-eight, of which Psmith, by his usual golf methods, claimed thirty. Mike, who had gone in first as the star bat of the side, had been run out with great promptitude off the first ball of the innings, which his partner had hit in the immediate neighbourhood of point. At close of play the regiment had made five without loss. This, on the Saturday morning, helped by another shower of rain ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... to the Summer Shelter was terrific, and having but little headway at the moment of collision she was driven backward by the tremendous momentum of the larger vessel as if she had been a ball struck by a bat. Every person on board was thrown down and hurled forward. Mrs. Cliff extended herself flat upon the deck, her arms outspread, and every clergyman was stretched out at full length or curled up against some obstacle. The engineer had been thrown among his levers ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... old elm, and the pale, peeping front of the 'Tyled House,' through the close and dismal avenue of elm, he reached the front of the mansion. There was no glimmer of light from the lower windows, not even the noiseless flitting of a bat over the dark little court-yard. His key let him in. He knew that his servants were in bed. There was something cynical in his ree-raw independence. It was unlike what he had been used to, and its savagery suited with his bitter and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... the salon, back into the big dining hall, where the white crepe myrtle grows. Ha! how low that bat has circled. It has struck Ma'ame Pelagie full on the breast. She does not know it. She is beyond there in the dining hall, where her father sits with a group of friends over their wine. As usual they are talking politics. How tiresome! She has ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... you what, old girl; I shan't try. Live for the next twenty years under her apron strings, that I may have the chance at the end of it of cutting some poor devil out of his money! Do you know the meaning of making a score off your own bat, Martha?" ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... Lanyard," the Englishman resumed, looking up from the motor, to which he was paying attentions with monkey-wrench and oil-can, "that you were quite off your bat when you ridiculed the idea of the 'International Underworld Unlimited.' Of course, if you hadn't laughed, I shouldn't feel quite as much respect for you as I do; in fact, the chances are you'd be in handcuffs or in a cell of the Sante, this very minute.... But, absurd as it sounded—and ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... small, consisting only of hogs, dogs, rats, and an anomalous bat which flies by day: There are few insects, except such as have been imported, and these, which consist of centipedes, scorpions, cockroaches, mosquitoes, and fleas, are happily confined to certain localities, and the two first have left most ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... you've got to do something that will sell right off the bat—payment on acceptance! ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair

... surrounded by eight men, each armed with a club about five and a half feet long, the thickness of a baseball bat at one end and three inches in diameter at the other. Behind him, each of the natives had laid his stabbing-knife, skinning-knife, and whetstone. At the word the killing began. Each native brought down his club simultaneously, the first blow invariably crushing the slight, thin bones ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... the end of this bat in the belfry sort of management," added boots, holding high a ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... go over a fence and race when we ride together. She can scud, too, like a deer when we play 'Follow the leader,' and skip stones and bat balls almost as well as I can," said Mac, in reply to his uncle's praise of ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... hawk circled in the air above her, and a clumsy bat came bumping through the dusk as she crossed the ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... was about at the time, and for the moment we thought of applying to him. He was standing on the threshold of the stable, under the horseshoes and weasles' feet nailed up to keep the witches away, teasing a bat that he had found under the tiles. But suddenly the dusky thing bit him sharply, and he uttered an oath; while the creature, released, flew aimlessly into the elms. It was better ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... that game for him, too. Don't you let that fact escape your memory! I hope Bart Hodge will refuse to catch. I'm afraid I couldn't resist the temptation to throw the ball square at his head every time, if he was behind the bat. I want him ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... who fell upon the ground and was caught by a Weasel pleaded to be spared his life. The Weasel refused, saying that he was by nature the enemy of all birds. The Bat assured him that he was not a bird, but a mouse, and thus was set free. Shortly afterwards the Bat again fell to the ground and was caught by another Weasel, whom he likewise entreated not to eat him. The Weasel said that he had a special hostility to mice. The Bat assured him that ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... shining. It was quite delightful to show the boys all over the house and then go through the yard to the stables and greet Dobbin and Prince. And Battle, the dog, called so because he had been such a fighter, but commonly known as Bat, wagged his whole body with delight at sight ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... his bat well, Moffat," one of the lieutenants said to the captain, who was the most energetic cricketer among the officers, and who with one or two of the sergeants generally made up the team when the regimental eleven played against that ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... and listened to the speech of a student, who addressed us from the great balcony amid a storm of applause. Whether it was the same honest fellow who besought the people to desist from their design of burning the prince's palace because the library would be imperilled, I do not know, bat the answer, "Leave the poor ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... hagitate Eusebie, heters ta peri toutou nomizei kai ouch hs sy. ton men gar en t bat phanenta t Mys theologei ton de en HIerich t met' auton ophthenta, ton tn HEbrain epistasian lachonta, machairan espasmenon, kai t Isou lysai prostattonta to hypodma, touton de ge ton archangelon hypeilphe Michal, k. t. l.—The entire passage may be seen in the best annotated ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... jetty gradual she was hauled: Then one the tiller took, And chewed, and spat upon his hand, and bawled; And one the canvas shook Forth like a mouldy bat; and one, with nods And smiles, lay on the bowsprit end, and called And cursed the Harbour-master ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of the council of Rimini is very elegantly told by Sulpicius Severus, (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 419-430, edit. Lugd. Bat. 1647,) and by Jerom, in his dialogue against the Luciferians. The design of the latter is to apologize for the conduct of the Latin bishops, who ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... done with it. What butter-colored hair you've got. I don't want to be personal. All right, then, you needn't. You're a stale-cadaver. Eighteen-pence if the bottles are returned. Allons, from all bat-eyed formulas. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... regarded more as a contest than a pastime; each side feared the censure of his parish, if conquered, so nothing had to be given away likely to prove an advantage to an opposing team. I once saw a member snatch a bat belonging to his own club from one of the other side who was about to appropriate it for his innings with, "No you don't." How different is the feeling, and how ready to help, a member of a really sporting team would have been in similar circumstances! Referring ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... the vampire bat, Rattus Norvegicus, the common rat, Mus Domesticus, the common mouse, The Common Locust, Sylvilagus, the Cottontail Rabbit, Passer Domesticus, the House Sparrow, Sturnus ...
— Join Our Gang? • Sterling E. Lanier

... saying, in his boyish manner: "Oh, I saw such a big one just now, such a big one, it quite frightened me; I thought it was a bat attacking me." ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti

... scarce here that I fear my generous friend has been robbing himself. He told me that he had one hundred and forty forcats—slave-prisoners —at the village, whom he meant to put to good use in constructing store and dwelling-houses, &c. The hunters brought on board to-day an East India bat, or vampire, measuring two feet ten inches from tip to tip of wing. Its head resembled that of a dog or wolf more than any other animal, its teeth being very sharp and strong. Among the curiosities ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... Saldanha, bearing east, twelve leagues distant; but owing to calms and contrary winds, it was the 24th before we got moored in the road. We there found three ships belonging to Holland; one of which, bound for Bantam, was commanded by Peter Bat, general of thirteen sail outward-bound, but having spent his main-mast and lost company of his fleet, put in here to refresh his sick men. The other two were homeward-bound, having made train-oil ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... laughingly suggested, with a hand on the shoulder of the visionary. But Elias protested vehemently, swearing by Allah that he knew a crocodile when he saw one. The monster in dispute had been no crocodile, as witness its possession of two wings, like the wings of a bat, only fifty times larger, and a voice which could be heard for many miles. There was one blessing, however, about all such creatures; that they had power only over unbaptized people. This last touch pleased the majority of his audience, causing them to praise Allah, and inclining them to ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... of the women. It is, therefore, perhaps not to be wondered at, considering the important status assigned to women by the Khasis, that women should inherit the property and not men. The rule amongst the Khasis is that the youngest daughter "holds" the religion, "ka bat ka niam." Her house is called, "ka iing seng" and it is here that the members of the family assemble to witness her performance of the family ceremonies. Hers is, therefore, the largest share of the family ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... with sawdust as if he had been grovelling or sleeping on barroom floors. There is a red bruise on his forehead over one of his eyes, another over one cheekbone, his knuckles are skinned and raw—plain evidence of the fighting he has been through on his "bat." His eyes are bloodshot and heavy-lidded, his face has a bloated look. But beyond these appearances—the results of heavy drinking—there is an expression in his eyes of wild mental turmoil, of impotent animal rage baffled ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill

... le' me alone!' gasped Ted, struggling and writhing with all his power; but the flailing went on, bat—bat—bat—with blows that might have disturbed an elephant. Ted's feelings became too strong for words; he started to howl, and the night re-echoed with the cries of the outraged bushranger. The rest of the gang stood mute, staring at this ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the ...
— Beauties of Tennyson • Alfred Tennyson

... happen if me an' Pinkie busts in on Pete an' Marny widout sendin' in our visitin'-cards first, polite-like. Dey would pull deir guns, an' though we'd get de coin just de same, dere'd be hell to pay fer Charlie, an' de whole place 'd go up in fireworks right off de bat. Well, dis is where youse come in. Youse are de visitin'-card. Youse gets into deir bunk room, pretendin' youse have made a mistake, an' youse leaves de door open behind youse. Dey don't know youse, an', bein' a woman, dey won't pull no gun on youse. An' den youse breaks it ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... rhodora, the club-moss, the blooming clover, not of the hibiscus and the asphodel. He knows the bumblebee, the blackbird, the bat and the wren. He illustrates his high thought by common things out of our plain New England life: the meeting of the church, the Sunday-School, the dancing-school, a huckleberry party, the boys and girls hastening home from school, the youth in the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... they are assaileable, Then be thou iocund: ere the Bat hath flowne His Cloyster'd flight, ere to black Heccats summons The shard-borne Beetle, with his drowsie hums, Hath rung Nights yawning Peale, There shall be done a deed ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... Fleet; but had he not in prison fought a duel with a viscount? Montmorency (of the Norfolk Circuit) was in the Fleet too; and when Canterfield went to see poor Montey, the latter had pointed out Walker to his friend, who actually hit Lord George Tennison across the shoulders in play with a racket-bat; which event was soon made known ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... greatly annoy the inhabitants, who cannot get rid of them by fire or smoke, or any other means, until at the midnight hour they retire of their own accord. Not less troublesome are the leaf-nosed bats (Phyllostoma), which attack both man and beast. This bat rubs up the skin of his victim, from which he sucks the blood. The domestic animals suffer greatly from the nocturnal attacks of these bats, and many are destroyed by the exhaustion consequent on the repeated blood-sucking. The blood drawn by the bat itself ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... skip details. Suffice to say That, knocking at her wicket, There chanced to come one autumn day A common garden cricket So ragged, poor, and needy that, Without elucidation, One saw the symptoms of a bat Of ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl

... Considering its complexity, the fineness and delicacy of its mechanism, the results attainable by the human eye seem far from adequate to the expenditure put upon it. We have flattered ourselves by inventing proverbs of comparison in matter of blindness,—"blind as a bat," for instance. It would be safe to say that there cannot be found in the animal kingdom a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance and connection, as the greater majority ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... its centre; he alone realises it as the head of a corpse, exercising its powers through all the circumstances of death. What may be called the fascination of corruption penetrates in every touch its exquisitely finished beauty. About the dainty lines of the cheek the bat flits unheeded. The delicate snakes seem literally strangling each other in terrified struggle to escape from the Medusa brain. The hue which violent death always brings with it is in the features; features singularly massive ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... mort! surtout si celle que l'on aime est la pour vous encourager, pour vous benir.... Ah! comtesse, quand je fais de tels reves, avec vous pour temoin, mon coeur bat, ma tete s'exalte.... ...
— Bataille De Dames • Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve

... tracts, messengers of blessing, under the front-doors of wretched friends, who are dying without homes in the gilded miseries of their bowling-alley parlors. Where they have introduced the patent weather-strip, I place the tract on the upper door-step, with a brick-bat, which keeps it from blowing away. But I observe that it is no part of the plan of those charming papers, more than it was of the "Novum Organon" or of the "Principia," to descend into the details of the economies. I suppose that the author left all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... home left its mark for all time on those who were brought up in it. The sons played cricket and went bat-fowling with the village boys, and not seldom joined with them in a poaching expedition to the paternal preserves. However popular or successful or happy a Public-school boy might be at Eton or Harrow, he counted the days till he could return to his pony and his gun, his ferrets and rat-trap ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... sell my bat, I sell my ball, I sell my spinning-wheel and all; And I'll do all that e'er I can To follow the ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... as inhabiting an island called Jabeh (supposed to be Java) in the Sea of El-Hind or India; and a kind of Nesnas is also described as inhabiting the Island of Raij, in the Sea of Es-Seen, or China, and having wings like those of the bat. (Ibn El-Wardee.)" Compare also an incident in the story of Janshah (Nights v. p. 333, and note) and the description of the giant Haluka in Forbes' translation of the Persian Romance of Hatim Tai (p. 47): "In the course of an hour the giant ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... Philadelphia which grieved me sore by pilfering my news items as I wrote them. So I one day gave a marvellous account of the great Volatile Chelidonian or Flying Turtle of Surinam, of which a specimen had just arrived in New York. It had a shell as of diamonds blent with emeralds and rubies, and bat-like wings of iridescent hue surpassing the opal, and a tail like a serpent. Our contemporary, nothing doubting, at once published this as original matter in a letter from New York, and had to bear the responsibility. But I did not invest my inventiveness ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... herself called pretty; bat she had never thought about it at all till now. The people loved her; she had always believed that they had only said it as a sort of kindness, as they said, "God keep ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... calmly, "it did not touch me; and now, if I chose, I could pin you to the wall like a bat; but that would be repugnant to me, though you did waylay me to take my life, and besides, you have really amused me ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... blind as a bat!" he cried, a ring of vexation in his voice. "I never dreamed it until just how, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... That's the worst way you can do if you really want to bat well. And remember that while it's fine to knock out a home run and have everyone yelling and cheering you, the fellow that sacrifices is often the one that wins ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland

... of a baseball bat and ball, the two volcanic islands are separated by a 3-km-wide channel called The Narrows; on the southern tip of long, baseball bat-shaped Saint Kitts lies the Great Salt Pond; Nevis Peak sits in the center of its almost circular namesake island and its ball shape complements that of its ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... was what I did, you know, when I played with the Byrne boys at Biarritz); and I asked him if he was a good player, and he said "No," so I said I supposed he always had to field too, then; and he said, No, that sometimes they allowed him a bat, and so I said I was sure that wasn't the same game I played; and he laughed as if I had said something funny—his name is Lord George Lane—and the other one laughed too, and they both looked idiots, and so I did not say any more about ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn

... quickly:—"You're like a poll-parrot, like a screechin' poll-parrot." Donkin stopped and cocked his head attentively on one side. His big ears stood out, transparent and veined, resembling the thin wings of a bat. ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... has touched into his backgrounds here and there! And what drawings of animal life he made! There are two, for instance, in the Basel Museum which could not be surpassed; studies in silver-point and water-colours of lambs and a bat outstretched. No reproduction could give the exquisite texture of the bat's wings, the wandering red veins, the almost diaphanous membrane, the furry body,—a miracle of patience and softness. It is all purest Nature. Like ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... pendant to this, we are favoured with the portrait of a young gentleman upon a half-holiday—and, equipped with cricket means, his dexter-hand grasps his favourite bat, whilst the left arm gracefully encircles a hat, in which is seductively shown a genuine "Duke." The sentiment of this picture is unparalleled, and to the young hero of any parish eleven is given a stern expression of Lord's Marylebone ground. We can already (aided by perspective ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various

... remarked, "that Emmet would never have been elected if it had n't been for the support of Bat What's-his-name and the gang that makes his saloon ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... contrived by our antient Devil-raisers and Devil-makers, to feed the wayward Fancies of old Witches and Sorcerers, who cheated the ignorant World with a Devil of their own making, set forth, in terrorem, with Bat's Wings, Horns, cloven Foot, long Tail, fork'd Tongue, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... a terrible thing: "Woman is the nervous part of humanity, man the muscular." Humboldt himself, that serious thinker, has said that an invisible atmosphere surrounds the human nerves. I do not quote the dreamers who watch the flight of Spallanzani's bat, and who think they have found a sixth sense in nature. Such as nature is, her mysteries are terrible enough, her powers mighty enough, that nature which creates us, mocks at us, and kills us, without deepening the shadows that surround us. But where ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... shall this blind bat reckon, poor fool, that he could devise out of his disordered imagination a better God than the real. Wot you what this Mr Watkinson said to me once when we fell to talking of the sacrifice of Isaac? Oh, he could not allow that a loving and perfect God ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... she pines for a situation. I got home tolerably well, as I hear, the other evening. It may be a warning to any one in future to ask me to a dinner party. I always disgrace myself. I floated up stairs on the Coachman's back, like Ariel; "On a bat's back I ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... Stephen "Horn-house" and "Bat-house," as well as the smaller ruin between them, have been described by Mindeleff, who has likewise published plans of the first two. From their general appearance I should judge they were not occupied for so long a time as Awatobi, ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes

... a lure for many creatures of land and sea and sky. The moth and the bat whirl about a flame; the sea-bird dashes its body against the bright glass of the lonely tower; wild deer come to see what has disturbed the dark of the forest, and fish of different kinds leap at a torch. Red Chicken put a match to ours when ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... trying to catch that music again. I never do—definitely. Never. But at times I put down the book and it seems to me that surely a moment ago I heard it, that if I sit very still in a moment I shall hear it again. And I can feel it is there, I know it is there, like a bat's cry, pitched too high for my ears. I know it is there, just as I should still know there was poetry somewhere if some poor toothless idiot with no roof to his mouth and no knowledge of any but the commonest words tried ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... "Ruin seize thee Ruthless King," Took bat-like form for hollow echo-flight. Though stoned and lanced at, when, at fall of night, It darted forth with ghastly—spreading wing, It found in fresh, wide, royal ravishing, New hollows, dark with horror and sad plight, To dash in and ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle

... I may not always look beautiful. If you see me with my face all black, don't be frightened. If you see me flapping wings like bat's wings, as big as the whole sky, don't be afraid. If you hear me raging, you must believe that I am just doing my work. Nay, Diamond, if I change into a serpent or a tiger, you must not let go your hold of me, for it will be I just ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • Elizabeth Lewis and George MacDonald

... Spanish camp and night-fires they descried: Then on the stranger's neck that wild maid fell, And said, Thy own gods prosper thee, farewell! The owl[224] is hooting overhead; below, On dusky wing, the vampire-bat sails slow. Ongolmo stood before the cave of night, 90 Where the great wizard sat:—a lurid light Was on his face; twelve giant shadows frowned, His mute and dreadful ministers, around. Each eye-ball, as in ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... matter of equity, there was little, if any, liability under the policy. He shouted, "Fake!" "No," I replied, "simply a matter of contractural rights and of justice. The picture is absolutely bona fide." He left, emphatically stating that he would at once "go to the bat." I suggested that he submit the matter to his attorney. Fortunately for him, he had a wise one who promptly advised that ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks

... the cricket pitch on the village green. Oh, the cricket! She thought that so funny—the men in high, sugar-loaf hats, grown-up men, spending hours and hours, day after day, in banging at a ball with a wooden bat! ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... we practised playing at A kind of heathen cricket, A croquet mallet was the bat, The Squire's old ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams

... cities: Chiat'ura, Gori, K'ut'aisi, P'ot'i, Rust'avi, Tbilisi, Tqibuli, Tsqaltubo, Zugdidi autonomous republics: Abkhazia or Ap'khazet'is Avtonomiuri Respublika (Sokhumi), Ajaria or Acharis Avtonomiuri Respublika (Bat'umi) note: the administrative centers of the two autonomous republics ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... and neither spoke. It was getting on towards evening; and both of them had to go to work when it grew dark. Summer was almost over, so the wood-mouse had begun to collect her winter-stores. She did not lie torpid like the hedgehog or the bat and she could not fly to Africa like the stork and the swallow, so she had to have her store-room filled, if she did not wish to suffer want. She had already collected a good deal of beech-mast. But the nuts were not ripe yet and, if she took them before they ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald

... slumming Saturday afternoon. They attended a Ball Game. Loretta had her Chin over the Railing and evinced a keen Interest, her only Difficulty being that she never knew which Side was at bat. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... opinion may have been of you, Mr. Brockton, before you arrived, now I have seen you—and I'm a man who forms his conclusions right off the bat—I don't mind saying you've agreeably surprised me. That's just a first impression, but they run kind o' strong ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... uncouth by its voicelessness—revolted the aesthetic sensibilities of Helwyse. Besides, what was the meaning of it? Had it actually been Davy Jones with whom he had striven on the midnight sea? and had his adversary, instead of drowning, spread his bat-wings for home, and left his supposititious murderer to disquiet himself in vain? Verily, a practical joke ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... wasn't what I meant, Steve. I figured he was kind of a regular chap—the hero guy that's too hot proud to bat an eye, you know, even when he's—well, I just can't get it straight in words, but this is what I'm driving at. The first night after you had gone he was settin' right here where I'm settin' now, looking quiet into the fire. I didn't ask him what was on his mind, not because I've learned ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... Derrick, "I do not see that I have made one step forward; but it will go hard with me before I am beaten. Some of the men I have to deal with are as bat-blind as they are cantankerous. One would think that experience might have taught them wisdom. Would you believe that some of those working in the most dangerous parts of the mine have false keys to ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... mouse; And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out, That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know; For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise, Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib, Such dear concernings hide? who would do so? No, in despite of sense and secrecy, Unpeg the basket on the house's top, Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, To try conclusions, in the basket creep And break your ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... hero fell, a column falls! Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold, A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat! Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle! Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled, Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home, Lit by the ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... each had secured a bat when they had left the house. And now they were prepared to defend the motor-boat and themselves also ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay

... having exhausted all other ways of improving mankind, should forbid the scoring of baseball games, it might still be possible to play some sort of game in which the umpire decided according to his own sense of fair play how long the game should last, when each team should go to bat, and who should be regarded as the winner. If that game were reported in the newspapers it would consist of a record of the umpire's decisions, plus the reporter's impression of the hoots and cheers of the crowd, plus at best a vague account of how ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... plutocracy, absorbing ninety-five per cent. of the nation's wealth, assumes the practical government, the commonwealth with a firm hand will thrust it aside; but will it be a peaceful change, will the conquerors yield to the conquered? As the vampire bat fans its sleeping victims while absorbing their life blood, the advocates of capital deny that there is any such thing as plutocracy, or anything going on but the natural legitimate and healthful development ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... say right here I never did like brown hair—is Joy Blythe, Bill Derr's girl. Of course, Bill's a good feller and all that, and if he likes that style of beauty it ain't anything against him. But that other girl now. Swing, you purblind bat, when it comes to looks, she lays all over Joy Blythe like four aces over ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... the museum were the Severed Lady, who apparently was nonexistent below the waist; the Remarkable Tattooed Lady, who had been rescued from Chinese pirates in the Coral Sea, and some others. To them the tuft-nosed man was known as Bat—surmised to be a contraction ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... I'm not a man who does much with the bat, but my bowling is rather out of the common. I have a natural leg-break which baffles fellows frightfully. Why, there was a question raised once about ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... means dishonorable dismissal, right off the bat! Not that there's ever much chance of such a thing ever being needed. The Commissioner has built up such a sense of pride in the service that a chap would do anything rather than neglect his duty. I'll tell you a story of a ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... for. Byron, now. It was very good of you not to mention him before, Mrs. Vervain. Bat I knew he had to come. He called it a ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... semblance of he-mules and others of muleteers and handsome Mamelukes, the like of the least of whom is not found with any of the Kings; and others of you be transmewed to muleteers, and the rest to menials." So seven hundred of them changed themselves into bat-mules and other hundred took the shape of slaves. Then Abu al-Sa'adat called upon his Marids, who presented themselves between his hands and he commanded some of them to assume the aspect of horses saddled with saddles of gold crusted with jewels. And when Ma'aruf saw them ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... For example, Evelyn has about the same capacity for physical work as Annie, but she stands lower than the latter in arithmetic and higher in language work. John shows about the same physical power as Henry, when measured by running and jumping and chinning; but John can hit the ball with his bat more times out of a hundred than Henry can, whereas Henry can hit the bull's-eye with his rifle more times out of a hundred than John can. In a thousand details any two children differ from each other, one excelling in nearly half of the points, the other ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... and off the porch, seemed legion, and they were besieging Susan. In reality there were seven of them, of all sizes and sexes, from the third Joshua with a tennis-bat to the youngest who was weeping at being sent to bed, and holding on to her Aunt Susan with desperation. When Honora had greeted them all, and kissed some of them, she was informed that there were two more upstairs, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... First Buss plate. He introduced a farcical incident not in the text—the ball knocking off the fielder's hat, who is quite close to the batsman. A very poor production. Observe the "antediluvian" shape of the bat—no paddings on the legs. The sketch is valuable as showing how not to interpret Dickens' humour, or rather how to interpret it in a strictly literal ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald

... a le "wicket," une chose fait de trois morceaux de bois, a qui le "bowler" jette la balle, dur comme une pierre, et si ca vous attrappe sur le jambe, je vous promis, ca vous fera sauter. Et bien, avant le wicket se place l'homme qui est dedans et qui tient dans ces mains le "bat" avec lequel il frappe la balle et fait des courses. L'autre jour dans un "allumette" entre deux "counties," un professional qui s'appelle Fusil a fait plus que ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various

... carriage-drive, as it might contain elements of danger for them. Once they had passed out on the main road to Metz, it would not take them long to reach the field where the big Caudron airplane lay like an exhausted and enormous bat, awaiting their coming to spring ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach

... his feathers as he darts away. Once, in the wilderness, when very hungry, I caught two partridges by slipping over their heads a string noose at the end of a pole. Here one might as well try to catch a bat in the twilight as to hope to snare one of our upland partridges by any such invention, or even to get near enough ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long

... been heard by me. Listen now, with concentrated attention, to what I say unto you. He who is not employed in merit or in sin, he who does not attend to Profit, or Virtue, or Desire, who is above all faults, who regards gold and a brick-bat with equal eyes, becomes liberated from pleasure and pain and the necessity of accomplishing his purposes. All creatures are subject to birth and death. All are liable to waste and change. Awakened repeatedly by the diverse benefits and evils of life, all of them ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... old bat-stroke that used to worry the boys in town-hall so much," said the Captain carelessly. "It's queer what things turn out useful to a man, and when ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... more than partially, thinking deeply. He strove to stem the current of his thoughts, to keep his mind a blank, or to concentrate on trivialities—he followed with exaggerated interest the swift erratic course of a bat that had flown in through the open door flap, counted the familiar objects around him showing dimly in the flickering light, counted innumerable sheep passing through the traditional gate, counted the seconds represented in the periodical silences that punctuated a cicada's monotonous ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... A bat being startled, probably, out of the meeting-house, by the commotion around, flew blindly about in the sunshine, and alighted on a man's sleeve. I looked at him,—a droll, winged, beast-insect, creeping ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... as he will. It is necessary only to sit perfectly still. But this is unsatisfactory; you can never see just what they are doing. Once I had thirty or forty close about me in this way. A sudden turn of my head, when a bat struck my cheek, sent them all off in a panic ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... freckened of a bat I'd be, Masther Dick? I tell ye it was a great big thing as large as a man, wid long black wings, an' it sent a shudder all through me, sor, to see the great baste come ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... span of roof overhead, all cut from island timber—another proof of what the wood-carver may effect in the island hereafter. Certainly distractions were frequent and troublesome, at least to a newcomer. A large centipede would come out and take a hurried turn round the Governor's seat; or a bat would settle in broad daylight in the curate's hood; or one had to turn away one's eyes lest they should behold—not vanity, but—the magnificent head of a Cabbage-palm just outside the opposite window, with the black vultures trying to sit on the footstalks in a high wind, and ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... nothing wrong, love. Bat something has happened. Something which I hope will not make you unhappy—for it has ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... of our own Ranidae. Pending my monograph upon what little I had time to learn of their interesting habits and customs, the curious will find instruction and entertainment in Brandes and Schvenichen's Brutpfleige der Schwanzlosen Bat rachier, p. 395; and Lilian V. Sampson's Unusual Modes of Breeding among Anura, Amer. ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... slide up over the edge of the dripping caves below, and fasten upon him in the darkness. His imagination—always sufficiently vivid, and spurred to an unnatural effect by the exciting scenes of the previous night—painted each patch of shadow, clinging bat-like to the humid wall, as some globular sea-spider ready to drop upon him with its viscid and clay-cold body, and drain out his chilled blood, enfolding him in rough and hairy arms. Each splash in the water beneath him, each sigh of the multitudinous and ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... "By the Eternal, that man Sharon would stake his immortal soul on a four-card flush and never bat an eye. Time and time ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... of things and accidental properties. In this way they would explain, for example, why iron is hard and black, while butter is soft and white. The Mutakallimun deny any such distinction. All forms are accidents. Hence it would follow that there is no intrinsic reason why man rather than the bat should be a rational creature. Everything that is conceivable is possible, except what involves a logical contradiction; and God alone determines at every instant what accident shall combine with a given atom or group ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... subjects which might at some future time have great importance, try this test. Have a piece of pasteboard cut into squares, circles, triangles, halfmoons, stars and other forms. Then write upon each piece some such word as hat, coat, ball or bat. The objects are then placed under a cloth cover and the subject to be examined is told to concentrate his attention on the shapes alone, paying no attention to the words. The cloth is lifted for five seconds and then replaced. The subject is then ...
— Applied Psychology: Making Your Own World • Warren Hilton

... mistake may be antecedent and irrevocable, and the revolution therefore necessary, but this is rarely the case. The revolutionist runs a risk common to all who are in a hurry—he may break the object of his attention instead of moving it. When he wants to hand you a dish he hits it with a ball-bat. Taking a reasonable amount of time is better in the ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... young rascal!" exclaimed the woodsman, with a chuckle. "You'll have that whole spatter of Tories arter us. Couldn't you hide your clothes better 'n that? Might have left 'em ashore. If the old gentleman hadn't been blinder'n a bat at midday, he'd ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... dirty, weazened, and awfully serious little man of the tribe of Buttinsky, who sat breathlessly trying to catch the pearls that fell from the ample mouth of the philosopher. Aristophanes referred to Cheropho as "Socrates' bat," a play-off on Minerva and her bird of night, the owl. There were quite a number of these "bats," and they seemed to labor under the same hallucination that catches the lady students of the Pundit Vivakenanda H. Darmapala: they think that wisdom is to be imparted by word ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... Quel esprit ne bat la campagne? Qui ne fait ch[^a]teau en Espagne? Picrochole [q.v.], Pyrrhus, la laiti['e]re, enfin tous, Autant les sages que les fous.... Quelque accident fait-il que je rentre en moi-m[^e]me; Je suis ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... were made after the new cut, Al Portugese, loose like an emptie gut, And his hose broken high above the heeling, And his shooes beaten out with traveling. But neither sword nor dagger he did beare; 215 Seemes that no foes revengement he did feare; In stead of them a handsome bat he held, [Bat, stick.] On which he leaned, as one farre in elde. [Elde, age.] Shame light on him, that through so false illusion Doth turne the name of souldiers to abusion, 220 And that which is the noblest mysterie [Mysterie, profession.] Brings to reproach and common infamie! Long ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... wrinkled little bat once went on a journey together. When it came toward night a storm arose, and the two companions sought everywhere for a shelter. But all the birds were sound asleep in their nests and the animals in their holes and dens. They could find no welcome anywhere ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott



Words linked to "Bat" :   tube-nosed bat, lumber, beat, wink, thresh, thrash, crush, flail, racket, order Chiroptera, nictate, trounce, cricket equipment, wing, baseball game, handgrip, racquet, vanquish, eutherian, flutter, turn, paddle, beat out, shell, eutherian mammal, jackass bat, Chiroptera, hit, switch-hit, club, placental, baseball, European brown bat, blink, hold, handle, red bat, nictitate, placental mammal, lam, play, orange bat, grip



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