batty
Noun pluralbatties
Pluralbatties
- 1Mad, crazy, or foolish.
Her batty uncle keeps a pet crow and talks to it all day.
The idea sounded batty at first, but it actually worked.
Similarcrazy, nutty, dotty, loopy, bonkers
Note
The bat in question lives in the belfry. The 'crazy' meaning dates from 1903 and comes from having bats in one's belfry, with the creatures' erratic flight standing in for a disordered mind. Edwina Currie's 1992 diary uses it of Baroness Thatcher, 'eyes rolling'. It compares regularly as battier and battiest. Compare batshit, also 'insane', and squirrelly, which leans toward jumpy or eccentric.
- 2The buttocks or anus.
He fell off the low wall and bruised his batty.
She wiggled her batty to the beat of the music.
Similarbum, bottom, butt, backside
Note
A different word altogether from the bat adjectives: this batty comes from bottom, perhaps nudged along by botty or butt. It belongs to West Indian slang and Multicultural London English. Marlon James's A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014) uses it in a list of body parts: 'beat the boy back and batty and leg.' The plural is batties.
- 3A homosexual man (used as a derogatory term).
Neighbors whispered cruelly that the new tenant was a batty.
The thugs cornered him, jeering that he was nothing but a batty.
Note
A slur used in Jamaica, the UK and Canada, built on the 'buttocks' word. Rudi Bleys's The Geography of Perversion (1996) discusses raga lyrics by Buju Banton and Brand Nubian that aim it at gay men as 'icons of non-blackness.' Recognize it, and quote it when discussing such language, but do not use it to describe anyone.
Less common meanings
- 4Belonging to, or resembling, a bat, the winged mammal.
And from each other look thou lead them thus Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.
c. 1595, William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”Note
Shakespeare uses the literal, bat-like sense in A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595–1596), where sleep creeps over brows 'with leaden legs and batty wings.' The sense is now obsolete, and a modern reader will hear the 'crazy' meaning instead. To describe leathery wings or other bat features today, bat-like is the safer choice.
- 5Obsolete form of paddy.
Note
An old spelling of paddy in its rice sense: unhusked rice, or the crop still in the field. It does not cover the tantrum or any other paddy. James Forbes's Oriental Memoirs (1834) explains the word for his readers: 'The rice, or batty, is sown in June.' It shares only its spelling with the bat and bottom words.
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Origins
Formed from bat plus the suffix -y. In the sense "insane" (attested 1903), it comes from the expression have bats in one's belfry, referring to the way bats fly around erratically.
From bottom, possibly influenced by botty or butt.