- a piece of wood with a handle, made in various shapes and sizes, and used for hitting the ball in games such as baseball, cricket and table tennis
- a baseball/cricket bat
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- baseball
- cricket
- table-tennis
- …
- grip
- hold
- carry
- …
Definitions on the go
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- an animal like a mouse with wings that flies and feeds at night (= it is nocturnal). There are many types of bat. see also fruit bat, old bat, vampire batTopics Animalsc1Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective
- fruit
- vampire
- etc.
- …
- flutter
- fly
- hang
- …
Word Originnoun sense 1 late Old English batt ‘club, stick, staff’, perhaps partly from Old French batte, from battre ‘to strike’. noun sense 2 late 16th cent.: alteration, perhaps by association with medieval Latin batta, blacta, of Middle English bakke, of Scandinavian origin.
Idioms
See bat in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionaryat bat
- (in baseball) trying to hit the ball with a bat
- It's his first time at bat in the major leagues.
(as) blind as a bat
- (humorous) not able to see well
- She’s as blind as a bat without her glasses.
More Like This Similes in idiomsSimiles in idioms- (as) bald as a coot
- (as) blind as a bat
- (as) bright as a button
- (as) bold as brass
- as busy as a bee
- as clean as a whistle
- (as) dead as a/the dodo
- (as) deaf as a post
- (as) dull as ditchwater
- (as) fit as a fiddle
- as flat as a pancake
- (as) good as gold
- (as) mad as a hatter/a March hare
- (as) miserable/ugly as sin
- as old as the hills
- (as) pleased/proud as Punch
- as pretty as a picture
- (as) regular as clockwork
- (as) quick as a flash
- (as) safe as houses
- (as) sound as a bell
- (as) steady as a rock
- (as) thick as two short planks
- (as) tough as old boots
like a bat out of hell
- (old-fashioned, informal) very fast
- She was driving like a bat out of hell.
off your own bat
- (British English, informal) if you do something off your own bat, it is your own idea and you do it without help or support from anyone else
- She made the suggestions entirely off her own bat.
right off the bat
- (especially North American English, informal) immediately; without delay
- We both liked each other right off the bat.
- Foreign aid is one of the issues we have to deal with right off the bat.
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bat