A glossary of Tudor and Stuart words, especially from the dramatists

by Walter W. Skeat

batable, debatable. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. iii, c. 4, § 2. ‘Batable ground seemeth to be the ground in question heretofore whether it belonged to England or Scotland, 23 Hen. VIII, c. 16, as if we should say debatable ground,’ Cowell, Interp. (ed. 1637).

bate (short for abate), to reduce, diminish, decrease, deduct. Merch. Ven. iii. 3. 32; iv. 1. 72; 1 Hen. IV, iii. 3. 2; Hamlet, v. 2. 23; to blunt, Love’s L. L. i. 1. 6. Phr. to bate an Ace, to abate a tittle, to make the slightest abatement, Heywood, Witches of Lancashire iv (Robin); vol. iv, p. 223, l. 2; Bate me an ace, quod Bolton, an expression of incredulity, R. Edwards, Damon and P. in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 77 (NED. s.v. Bate, vb.² 6 d).

bate, to beat the wings impatiently and flutter away from the fist or perch. Tam. Shrew, iv. 1. 199; 1 Hen. IV, iv. 1. 99 (old edd. bayted). F. se battre.

bate, bit, a northern form of the pret. of bite. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 5. 7. See EDD. (s.v. Bate vb.⁴).

batful, fattening, full of sustenance. Drayton, Pol. iii. 349; vii. 93; &c. See [batten].

batoon, battoon, a stick, cudgel. Shirley, The Traitor, iii. 1 (Rogers); battoon, Beaumont and Fl., Elder Brother, v. 1 (Egremont). See [bastone].

battaile, a body of troops in battle array. Bacon, Essay 58, § 9; battayle, Psalm lxxvi. 3 (Bible 1539); the main battle, main body of an armed force, Richard III, v. 3. 301. Prov. batalha ‘troupe rangée’ (Levy).

batten, to feed gluttonously, Hamlet, iii. 4. 67; to fatten, ‘Battening our flocks’, Milton, Lycidas, 29; to grow fat, B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, ii. 1 (Moon-calf). See Dict.

battle, (at Oxford) to have a kitchen and buttery account, to obtain provisions in college. ‘I eat my commons with a good stomach and battled with discretion’, Puritan Widow, i. 2. 42; ‘To battle, as scholars do in Oxford, Estre debteur au College pour ses vivres’, Sherwood, Dict. 1672.

battle, battill, to grow fat. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 8. 38; battling, fattening, nourishing to cattle, Greene, Friar Bacon, scene 9. 4; nutritious to man, Golding, tr. of Ovid Met. xv. 359. See [batten].