batten

• (General American) enPR: băt'-n, IPA^(key): /ˈbætən/

From Middle English *battenen, *batnen, of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse batna (“to grow better, improve, recover”), from Proto-Germanic *batnaną (“to become good, get better”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhAd- (“good”). Cognate with Icelandic batna (“to improve, recover”), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌱𐌰𐍄𐌽𐌰𐌽 (gabatnan, “to be noteful, profit, boot”), Dutch baten (“to avail, profit, benefit”), Old English batian (“to get better, recover”). More at better.

batten (third-person singular simple present battens, present participle battening, simple past and past participle battened)

1. (intransitive) To become better; improve in condition, especially by feeding.
2. (intransitive, figuratively) To feed (on); to revel (in).
   • 1890, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. XIV:

     The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving masks.

3. (intransitive) To thrive by feeding; grow fat; feed oneself gluttonously.
   • Garth

     The pampered monarch lay battening in ease.

   • Emerson

     Skeptics, with a taste for carrion, who batten on the hideous facts in history […]

4. (intransitive) To thrive, prosper, or live in luxury, especially at the expense of others; fare sumptuously.

   Robber barons who battened on the poor

5. (intransitive) To gratify a morbid appetite or craving; gloat.
6. (transitive) To improve by feeding; fatten; make fat or cause to thrive due to plenteous feeding.
   • Milton

     battening our flocks

7. (transitive) To fertilize or enrich, as land.

• battner

• battle

From Middle English bataunt, batent (“finished board”), from Old French batent (“beating”).

batten (plural battens)

1. A thin strip of wood used in construction to hold members of a structure together or to provide a fixing point.
2. (nautical) A long strip of wood, metal, fibreglass etc., used for various purposes aboard ship, especially one inserted in a pocket sewn on the sail in order to keep the sail flat.
3. In stagecraft, a long pipe, usually metal, affixed to the ceiling or fly system in a theater.
4. The movable bar of a loom, which strikes home or closes the threads of a woof.

batten (third-person singular simple present battens, present participle battening, simple past and past participle battened)

1. To furnish with battens.
2. (nautical) To fasten or secure a hatch etc using battens.

• batten down
• batten down the hatches

• FM 55-501 Marine Crewman’s Handbook

• baten

Debated. A comparable form is synonymous Dutch baten, which pertains to the Germanic root at hand in English batten and better. At least a secondary relation with this Dutch verb seems certain. However, its regular cognate is Old High German bazzen (“to batten”), which would have led to modern *bassen, bässen. Mere borrowing from Low German or Dutch is unlikely since the verb has -t- in western Upper German and a corresponding -d- in many dialects of West Central German. Possibly two distinct roots have been merged.

batten (third-person singular simple present battet, past tense battete, past participle gebattet, auxiliary haben)

1. (obsolete, western Germany) to be useful, to be of use, to help

• nutzen, nützen