Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An early form of badminton played with a flat wooden paddle and a shuttlecock.
  • noun The paddle used in this game.
  • noun A badminton racket.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A bat or beetle used in washing clothes, or for smoothing them out while being laundered.
  • noun An instrument shaped like a racket, but smaller, used in playing the game of battledore and shuttlecock.
  • noun A paddle for a canoe.
  • noun In glass-making, a flat square piece of polished iron with a wooden handle, used for flattening the bottoms of tumblers, or for similar purposes.
  • noun A kind of paddle with a long handle, used for placing loaves in a baker's oven.
  • noun A kind of horn-book: so called from its shape.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun same as battledoor.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A game played with a shuttlecock and rackets (properly battledore and shuttlecock); a forerunner of badminton.
  • noun The racket used in this game.
  • noun obsolete A child's hornbook for learning the alphabet.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a light long-handled racket used by badminton players
  • noun an ancient racket game

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English batildore, perhaps blend of betel, bat; see beetle and Old Provençal batedor, bat (from battre, to beat, from Late Latin battere; see batter).]

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Examples

  • The shuttlecock is like our own, but the battledore is the sole of the foot.

    The English Governess at the Siamese Court Being Recollections of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok Anna Harriette Leonowens 1874

  • The shuttlecock is like our own, but the battledore is the sole of the foot.

    The English Governess at the Siamese Court Leonowens, Anna H 1870

  • The combatants, being stripped and painted and each provided with a kind of battledore or racket, in shape resembling the letter P with a handle about two feet long and a head loosely wrought with network so as to form

    The Journey to the Polar Sea John Franklin 1816

  • The combatants being stript and painted, and each provided with a kind of battledore or racket, in shape resembling the letter P, with a handle about two feet long and a head loosely wrought with net-work, so as to form a shallow bag, range themselves on different sides.

    Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 John Franklin 1816

  • Shuttlecock and battledore, "he said obscurely," ....

    “It was the Golden Fleece ready for the shearing.” 2008

  • Lane began by negotiating a truce in a price war in the Far East between Royal Dutch and Shell and by putting an end to what he called the damaging “battledore and shuttlecock game of accusation” between Samuel and Deterding.

    The Prize Daniel Yergin 2008

  • One day I gave thee a willow battledore and a shuttlecock with yellow, blue and green feathers.

    Les Miserables 2008

  • Lane began by negotiating a truce in a price war in the Far East between Royal Dutch and Shell and by putting an end to what he called the damaging “battledore and shuttlecock game of accusation” between Samuel and Deterding.

    The Prize Daniel Yergin 2008

  • The tradesman leaves his counter, and the car – man his waggon; the butcher throws down his tray; the baker his basket; the milkman his pail; the errand – boy his parcels; the school – boy his marbles; the paviour his pickaxe; the child his battledore.

    Oliver Twist 2007

  • TUITION; and behind the blind was a little white – faced boy, with a slice of bread – and – butter and a battledore.

    Little Dorrit 2007

Comments

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  • badminton racket

    February 23, 2007

  • and shuttlecock? Now *there's* a word for your "not as awful as they sound" list! Shuttlecock!

    February 23, 2007

  • Of course--how could I have missed it? Added!

    February 27, 2007

  • A glassworker’s tool in the form of a square wooden paddle with a handle. Battledores are used to smooth the bottoms of vessels and other objects.

    November 9, 2007

  • "A kind of horn-book: so called from its shape." --CD&C

    January 15, 2013