batty
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
See also: Batty
English
[edit]Etymology 1
[edit]From bat + -y. In sense “insane”, attested 1903, from expression have bats in one's belfry,[1] from tendency of bats to fly around erratically. Compare also batshit (“insane”) and squirrelly (“jumpy, eccentric”).
Pronunciation
[edit]- Rhymes: -æti
Adjective
[edit]batty (comparative battier, superlative battiest)
- (slang) Mad, crazy, silly.
- 1992 July 6, Edwina Currie, Diary:
- On Sunday’s David Frost Show, Baroness Thatcher looked quite batty to me, eyes rolling.
- (obsolete) Belonging to, or resembling, a bat (mammal).
- c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
- And from each other look thou lead them thus
Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.
Derived terms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]mad, crazy, silly
|
See also
[edit]Etymology 2
[edit]From bottom, possibly influenced by botty or butt.[2]
Alternative forms
[edit]Noun
[edit]batty (plural batties)
- (West Indian slang, MLE, MTE) The buttocks or anus.
- 2014, Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings, Oneworld Publications (2015), page 35:
- He kick the boy down and beat the boy back and batty and leg.
- (Jamaica, UK, Canada, derogatory) A homosexual man.
- 1996, Rudi Bleys, The geography of perversion:
- For example, recent Jamaican 'raga' lyrics by Buju Banton and Brand Nubian attach the affirmation of black identity to crude animosity towards homosexuality and contain offensive language against the 'batties' as icons of non-blackness.
Derived terms
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “batty”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- ^ 2002, Frederic Gomes Cassidy, Robert Brock Le Page, Dictionary of Jamaican English (page 32).
Jamaican Creole
[edit]Etymology
[edit](This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]batty (plural batty dem, quantified batty)
- butt, bottom, buttocks (buttocks)
- Dem a wear buss batty pants.
- They're wearing pants with rips by the butt.
- 2009, Hezie Samuels, Soul Sand Grains: The Cost of No Change (in English), →ISBN, page 12:
- A voice along with the music was “chatting” the lyrics, “Gal batty broad, she come in a mi yard, me tek off mi shirt and [...]”
- The girl's butt is wide. She came to my home. I took off my shirt and [...]
Derived terms
[edit]References
[edit]- Richard Allsopp, editor (1996), Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, published 2003, →ISBN, page 84
- batty – jamaicans.com Jamaican Patois dictionary
Categories:
- English terms suffixed with -y
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English terms with homophones
- Rhymes:English/æti
- Rhymes:English/æti/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English slang
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- Multicultural London English
- Multicultural Toronto English
- Jamaican English
- British English
- Canadian English
- English derogatory terms
- en:Buttocks
- en:People
- Jamaican Creole terms with IPA pronunciation
- Jamaican Creole lemmas
- Jamaican Creole nouns
- Jamaican Creole terms with usage examples
- Jamaican Creole terms with quotations