bats

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of bat.

   At dusk, thousands of bats poured out of the cavern.

   The team's bats cracked loudly against the fast deliveries.

   Note

   One spelling covers several unrelated nouns: the flying mammals of the order Chiroptera, the clubs swung in baseball, softball and cricket, and the players rated by their skill at batting. Context sorts them out, since a team's bats can mean its equipment or its hitters. The derogatory use for an old woman pluralizes the same way. None of these should be confused with the "crazy" adjective, which only looks like a plural.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of bat.

   The cat bats the toy mouse across the kitchen floor.

   She bats cleanup for her softball team every weekend.

   Note

   The -s form does double duty across the verb's constructions. With an object it means striking: the cat bats a toy. Without one it means taking a turn at the plate, and in softball and baseball it can name a place in the lineup, as in she bats cleanup. A gentler transitive use means fluttering, the same motion as a hawk bating its wings.

   He bats third whenever the coach shuffles the lineup.

   She bats her eyelashes and hopes nobody notices.

3. 3
   adjectivecolloquial

   Crazy; mad or insane.

   By the end of the trip, the constant delays had driven her bats.

   Everyone thought the old inventor was a little bats, but his designs worked.

   Similarcrazy, insane, mad, nuts, batshit

   Oppositesane

   Note

   A playful word for madness, used almost always after a verb: you must be bats, don't be so bats, driven her bats. It compares with more and most, as in more bats and most bats. Anthony Buckeridge puts it in a schoolboy's mouth in Jennings and Darbishire (1952), which shows its tone: teasing rather than clinical. Batshit is a near-synonym.

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