baht

Pluralbaht, bahts

1. 1
   nouncountable

   Thailand's official unit of currency, made up of 100 satang.

   The vendor quoted a price of two hundred baht for the wooden carving.

   She withdrew several thousand baht from an ATM near her hotel.

   Note

   A borrowing from Thai bàat, and the only baht that belongs to general English. Its plural can stay unchanged, as in two hundred baht or several thousand baht, or it can take an -s, as in bahts. The word has nothing to do with the northern dialect spellings that share its letters, such as the Yorkshire word for "without".

2. 2
   adverbdialectalYorkshire

   Without; expressing the absence of something or the state of not having it.

   He arrived baht his tools and couldn't finish the job that day.

   You'll catch cold walking the lane baht a scarf.

   Similarwithout

   Oppositewith

   Note

   Yorkshire and Cheshire speech written down as it sounds: baht is but in its local pronunciation. The same respelling gives the "about" preposition and the noun for a bout of illness. Its best-known home is the song On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at. It takes a noun or an -ing form, as in Ben Preston's "baht hahses an' lands" (1881) and Robert Holland's "baht sayingk owt" (1886). It belongs to dialect writing, not general use.

3. 3
   prepositiondialectalYorkshire

   About; used to mean approximately, or in connection with something.

   The whole village turned out, baht two hundred souls in all.

   He grumbled baht the weather the entire walk home.

   Similarabout, around

   Note

   Here the spelling hides a dropped syllable: this is about with its opening a- gone, respelled the Yorkshire way. Because it looks exactly like the word for "without", context does the work. Baht two hundred means roughly two hundred, while baht a scarf means lacking one. It covers both the approximate use of about and the "concerning" use.

4. 4
   noundialectalYorkshirecountable

   A spell or attack of something, such as an illness or a fight.

   A sudden baht of fever kept him in bed for three days.

   The boxer lost his final baht before retiring from the ring.

   Similarbout, spell, attack

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