ever, stringent vagrant laws were in force.
1588. William Lambard, The Office of the Justices of the Peace, p. 334. Such two Justices may . . . License diseased persons (living of almes) to trauell to Bathe, or to Buckstone [Buxton], for remedie of their griefe.
Bathing Machines, subs. (nautical).—A
name given to the old
10 ton brigs.—Russell's
Sailor's Language.
Bat-Mugger, subs. (Winchester
College).—A wooden instrument
used for rubbing oil into
cricket bats.
Bats, subs. (thieves').—A pair of
bad or old boots. Elworthy in
West Somerset Words gives this
as a heavy laced boot with hobnails.
Bats Down? (Winchester and
general).—'How many bats
down?' i.e., how many wickets
have fallen?
Battels, subs. (University).—The
weekly bills of students at Oxford.
The derivation of the
term has been the subject of
much discussion, and is very
uncertain. Murray says much
depends on the original sense at
Oxford: if this was 'food, provisions,'
it is natural to connect
it with 'battle,' to feed, or receive
nourishment.—See quotation.
1886-7. Dickens, Dictionary of Oxford and Cambridge, p. 16. Battels is properly a designation of the food obtained from the College Buttery. An account of this, and of the account due to the Kitchen, is sent in to every undergraduate weekly, hence these bills also are known as battels, and the name, further, is extended to the total amount of the term's expenses furnished by the College. In some Colleges it is made essential to the keeping of an undergraduates' term that he should battel, i.e., obtain food in College on a certain number of days each week.
To quote Dr. Murray again, however, it appears that the word has apparently undergone progressive extensions of application, owing partly to changes in the internal economy of the colleges. Some Oxford men of a previous generation state that it was understood by them to apply to the buttery accounts alone, or even to the provisions ordered from the buttery, as distinct from the 'commons' supplied from the kitchen: but this latter use is disavowed by others . . . but whether the battels were originally the provisions themselves, or the sums due on account of them, must at present be left undecided.
1853. Cuthbert Bede, Verdant Green, pt. II., ch. vii. The Michaelmas term was drawing to its close. Buttery and kitchen books were adding up their sums total; bursars were preparing for battels.
(Eton.)—See quotation.
1798. H. Tooke, Purley, 390. Battel, a term used at Eton for the small portion of food which, in addition to the College allowance, the collegers receive from their dames.
Batter, subs. ( common ).—Wear
and tear; eg., 'the batter
is more than any human
being can stand for long. [From
one of the ordinary meanings of
to batter, to wear or impair
by beating or long service, as a
battered jade.]
Ppl. adj.—Given up to debauchery; this sense follows upon
To go on the batter, i.e., to walk the streets for purposes of prostitution; but cf., Bat.
