battledore
/ˈbat(ə)ldɔː
/noun historical
1 (also battledore and shuttlecock) [mass noun] A game played with a shuttlecock and rackets, a forerunner of badminton.He and I played games like marbles and shuttlecock and battledore....
- Ethel and Edith Dillon, as they were known to their parents, were playing the then-fashionable game of battledore, an early version of table tennis, in the family home at Clonbrock House.
- His origins in the fashion industry are very visible in a print like 'Woman playing battledore' from the series 'Five figures of modern beauties'.
1.1 [count noun] The small racket used in the game of battledore.Participants will paint pictures and designs on their own battledores and tops, and then play with them....
- The commoners too decorated their battledores, with colours which varied according to the local area.
- Approximately 50 thousand battledores, with prices ranging from 1000 yen to 600,000 yen are sold at this time.
2A wooden paddle-shaped implement formerly used in washing clothes for beating and stirring.She uses a wooden bat called a 'battledore' to beat the dirt out of them....
- At a well near Kettleness in the West Riding the fairies were well known to wash their clothes by night, and the thumps of their "battledores" were heard even at Runswick.
Origin
Late Middle English (in sense 2): perhaps from Provençal batedor 'beater', from batre 'to beat'.