English

Alternative forms

• battledoor

Noun

battledore ‎(plural battledores)

1. A game played with a shuttlecock and rackets (properly battledore and shuttlecock); a forerunner of badminton.
2. The racket used in this game.
   • 1938, George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, Chapter 3,

     There were nights when it seemed to me that our position could be stormed by twenty Boy Scouts armed with airguns, or twenty Girl Guides armed with battledores, for that matter.

3. (obsolete) A child's hornbook for learning the alphabet.
   • 1802, William Hutton, The History of the Roman Wall, preface

     You will also pardon the errors of the Work, for you know I was not bred to letters; but, that the battledore, at an age not exceeding six, was the last book I used at school.

4. (obsolete) A bat or beetle used in washing clothes.
   • 1563, John Foxe, The Book of Martyrs, ch. 21

     There is a large basin near the fountain, where numbers of women may be seen every day, kneeling at the edge of the water, and beating the clothes with heavy pieces of wood in the shape of battledores.

Derived terms

• know B from a battledore, know a B from a battledore

Translations