Definitions
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun An instrument, with a handle and a flat part covered with parchment or crossed with catgut, used to strike a shuttlecock in play; also, the play of battledoor and shuttlecock.
- noun obsolete A child's hornbook.
Etymologies
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Examples
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In our Art they have many shadows, or rather I should say, reflections; which are more or less distinct according to their proximity to the living originals, and, like the images in opposite mirrors, becoming themselves reflected and re-reflected with a kind of battledoor alternation, grow dimmer and dimmer till they vanish from mere distance.
Lectures on Art Washington Allston 1811
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Often have I reflected on this since; and, instead of being angry at many of those who have written against me, have smiled to think that they were unintentionally subservient to my fame, by using a battledoor to make me virum volitare per ora.
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The rudder is a light frame of cane covered with silk, somewhat of the form of an elongated battledoor, about three feet long, and one foot wide, where it is largest.
A Project for Flying In Earnest at Last! Robert Hardley
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The first glass, meantime, rendered once more ductile by heat, was passed to another man upon another bench, who, keeping up all the while the rotatory motion necessary to preserve the form of the softened material, smoothed it with the battledoor, gauged it with the compasses, coaxed it with the sugar-tongs, and finally trimmed it around the top with his scissors as easily as if it had been of paper.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 Various
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But in that society where one sometimes sits down and breathes, where conversation is considered as a fine art, and where talk is a mutual game of battledoor and shuttlecock, then it is that your stupid man looms up on the horizon like a blanket of clouds.
From a Girl's Point of View Lilian Bell
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Above all, he must not be deluded into believing that his condition can be permanently bettered by a mere battledoor [sic] and shuttlecock of words, or by any process of mere mental gymnastics or oratory.
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To the end of this the assistant now touched his pontil, upon whose end he had taken up a little more glass, and this, being twisted in a ring round the foot of the stem, divided from the pontil by a huge pair of scissors, dexterously shaped with the plyers, and finally smoothed with a battledoor, became the foot of the wine-glass.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 Various
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Pen watched and approved this stratagem, hoped for the best results, and believed the day won when Debby grew pale and silent, and followed with her eyes the young couple who were playing battledoor and shuttlecock with each other's hearts, as if she took some interest in the game.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 70, August, 1863 Various
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These were first moulded in the shape of great tumblers with an excessively ugly pattern printed on the sides, then softened in a glory-hole, and brought to a workman, who, by means of plyers and battledoor, elongated and shaped the neck, leaving a queer, ragged lip at the top.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 Various
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Except for the frequent conferences now in the new Forty-second Street offices that commanded a view of two rivers and a vast battledoor and shuttlecock of the city, it was the first time in all those years that stretched from the night at the Waldorf that they had sat thus tête-à-tête.
Star-Dust Fannie Hurst 1928
leaden commented on the word battledoor
See also battledore.
June 3, 2012
leaden commented on the word battledoor
To clarify, a battledoor is neither a battle nor a door, and is used to strike a shuttlecock, which is neither a shuttle nor a cock. The catgut and hornbook, on the other hand, are more or less what one might expect.
June 3, 2012