Definify.com

Definition 2024


battement

battement

English

Noun

battement (plural battements)

  1. (ballet) A ballet move involving a beating action with an extended leg
    • 1894, Arthur Machen, Memoirs of Casanova:
      [] he raised slowly his rounded arms, stretched them gracefully backward and forward, moved his feet with precision and lightness, took a few small steps, made some battements and pirouettes, and disappeared like a butterfly.
    • 1988 March 11, Dorothy Samachson, “Chicago Repertory Dance Ensemble”, in Chicago Reader:
      Ernst and Watson are superb dancers--extraordinarily agile and acrobatic, and their unison spins, battements, and body lines showed a split-second timing.
  2. (obsolete) A thumping or beating sensation
    • 1796, Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, Vol. I:
      Secondly, though there is an audible vertigo, as is known by the battement, or undulations of sound in the ears, which many vertiginous people experience [] .

French

Etymology

battre + -ment.

Noun

battement m (plural battements)

  1. beating; hitting
    battement du cœur
    beating of the heart

Norman

Noun

battement m (plural battements)

  1. (Jersey, medicine) heartbeat