Definitions

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

  • adjective Mentally deranged; crazy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or resembling a bat; battish.
  • noun Rice while growing.
  • noun A measure for rice in India, equal to 120 pounds. McElrath, Com. Dict.

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

  • adjective Belonging to, or resembling, a bat.
  • adjective colloq. Crazy; demented; loony; nuts.

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

  • adjective slang Mad, crazy, silly.
  • adjective obsolete Belonging to, or resembling, a bat (mammal).
  • noun The buttocks or anus.
  • noun Jamaica, UK, derogatory A homosexual man.

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

  • adjective informal or slang terms for mentally irregular

Etymologies

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

[From bats in the belfry.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

bat +‎ -y. In sense “insane”, attested 1903, from expression have bats in one's belfry, from tendency of bats to fly around erratically. Compare also batshit ("insane") and squirrelly ("jumpy, eccentric").

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