battened

Before fixing up the cupboards the walls should be made perfectly dry, and, if they are not so, they should be battened, that is, covered with canvass strained over slips of wood nailed to the walls, strong brown paper being afterwards pasted over the canvass.

The Lady's Country Companion: or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally Jane 1845

So they're taking all kinds of precautions to make sure that stuff is kind of battened down.

CNN Transcript Sep 12, 2008 2008

The hatch to the engine room was battened down, access being gained through a narrow passage from the cabin.

THE PEARLS OF PARLAY 2010

Did she lose her head or courage, or misplay her muscular part for a moment, she could be hurled a hundred feet by that giant buffet and left wrenched, helpless, and breathless to be pulped on the coral bottom and sucked out by the undertow to be battened on by the fish-sharks too cowardly to take their human meat alive.

THE KANAKA SURF 2010

As I was saying, when we first battened down, I was surprised.

THE SEED OF McCOY 2010

With everything battened down, me a-steering and Tilly chopping ice, we held on half the night, till I plumped the sloop ashore on Porcupine Island, and we shivered it out on the beach; blankets wet, and Tilly drying the matches on her breast.

SIWASH 2010

The other pearl buyers and myself, between seas, managed to get about fifteen women and children into the cabin, and battened down.

THE HEATHEN 2010

We battened down the engine-room hatch, and the sea rose to it and over it and climbed perilously near to the cabin companion-way and skylight.

SMALL-BOAT SAILING 2010

Elsewhere in Wisconsin, restaurants moved sidewalk furniture indoors and homeowners battened down anything that might blow away.

Strong Storm Sweeps Across Midwest 2010

Truly, the Jews of that day battened on religion as did we on fighting and feasting.

Chapter 17 2010