Batten definition
To eat large meals every day and gain weigh is an example of to batten.
To steal from poor people in order to live a life of luxury is an example of to batten.
Battened down the hatch during the storm.
Robber barons who battened on the poor.
- To prepare for an imminent disaster or emergency.
- to fasten canvas over the hatches, esp. in preparing for a storm
Alternative Forms
Other Word Forms
Noun
Idioms and Phrasal Verbs
Origin of batten
- Alteration of Middle English batent finished board or bar of wood from Old French batant wooden strip, clapper from present participle of batre to beat batter1 Noun, sense 3a and b, from French batant from Old French
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- Ultimately from Old Norse batna to improve bhad- in Indo-European roots
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- From Middle English *battenen, *batnen, of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse batna (“to grow better, improve, recover”), from Proto-Germanic *batnaną (“to become good, get better”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhAd- (“good”). Cognate with Icelandic batna (“to improve, recover”), Gothic (gabatnan, “to be noteful, profit, boot”), Dutch baten (“to avail, profit, benefit”), Old English batian (“to get better, recover”). More at better.
From Wiktionary
- From Middle English bataunt, batent (“finished board”), from Old French batent (“beating”)
From Wiktionary