Battaqua, m. (popular), slatternly woman, dowdy.
[Batterie], f. (popular), action of lying, of deceiving, “cram;” the teeth, throat, and tongue; —— douce, joke. (Freemasons’) Batterie, applause.
Batteur, m. (popular and thieves’), liar, deceiver; —— d’antif, thief who informs another of a likely “job;” —— de beurre, stockbroker; —— de dig dig, thief who feigns to be seized with an apoplectic fit in a shop so as to facilitate a confederate’s operations by drawing the attention to himself; (popular) —— de flemme, idler.
Battoir, m. (popular), hand, “flipper;” large hand, “mutton fist.”
Battre (thieves’), to dissemble; to deceive; to make believe.
Ne t inquiète pas, je battrai si bien que je défie le plus malin de ne pas me croire emballé pour de bon.—Vidocq.
Battre à la Parisienne, to cheat, “to do;” —— à mort, to deny; —— comtois, to play the simpleton; to act in confederacy; —— de l’œil, to be dying; —— entifle, to be a confederate, or “stallsman;” —— Job, to dissemble; —— l’antif, to walk, “to pad the hoof;” to play the spy, “to nark;” —— morasse, to call out “Stop thief!” “to give hot beef;” —— en ruine, to visit.
Drilles ou narquois sont des soldats qui ... battent en ruine les entiffes et tous les creux des vergnes.—Le Jargon de l’Argot.
(Popular) Battre la muraille, to be so drunk as “not to be able to see a hole in a ladder,” or not to be able “to lie down without holding on;” —— la semelle, to play the vagrant; —— le beurre, to speculate on ’Change; to be “fast;” to dissemble; —— le briquet, to be knock-kneed; —— sa flème, or flemme, to be idle, to be “niggling;” —— son quart is said of prostitutes who walk the streets. Des yeux qui se battent en duel, squinting eyes, or “swivel-eyes.” S’en battre l’œil, la paupière, or les fesses, not to care a straw. (Familiar) Battre son plein, to be in all the bloom of beauty or talent, “in full blast;” (military) —— la couverte, to sleep; (sailors’) —— un quart, to invent some plausible story; (printers’) —— le briquet, to knock the type against the composing-stick when in the act of placing it in.
Batture. See [Batterie].