arch. Forms: 6 batune, 6–7 battune (sense 3), 7 battoune, 7–8 battoone, 7– battoon, batoon. [17th c. ad. F. baton, of which it retained the accent: see -OON. Now almost superseded by BATON, which follows the French spelling.]

1

  1.  A stout staff or stick used as a weapon; a cudgel, club, truncheon; = BASTON 1, BATON 1.

2

a. 1625.  Fletcher & Mass., Elder Bro., V. i. My sword forc’d, from me … Get me a battoon.

3

1632.  Chapman & Shirley, Ball, IV. ii. I’ll cullice thee With a batoon.

4

1664.  Butler, Hud., II. ii. 719. Although his Shoulders with Batoon Be claw’d and cudgel’d to some tune.

5

1719.  D’Urfey, Pills (1872), III. 321. Often he fought with huge Battoon.

6

1801.  Strutt, Sports & Past., III. vii. 238. The bowls … are driven with a battoon, or mace.

7

1860.  All Y. Round, No. 71. 491. Winterfield, though he escaped the batoon, was ordered to leave his shop.

8

  2.  A staff of office; = BATON 2.

9

1658.  Brome, Covent Gard., III. i. The Lord and the Lowne, Must move by the motion of the Leaders Battoon.

10

a. 1693.  Ashmole, Antiq. Berks (1723), III. 60. In his right hand is a Battoon, as a General.

11

1704.  Luttrell, Brief Rel., V. 427. A battoon set with diamonds, sent him from the French King.

12

1807.  Robinson, Archæol. Græca, I. xiv. 65. The Areopagites … held in their hands, as a mark of their authority, a sort of batoon made in the form of a sceptre.

13

  3.  Her. = BASTON 3, BATON 3, which is the form now used. (In 16–17th c. usually written batune.)

14

1562.  Leigh, Armorie (1597), 64 b. The bastard shal beare the fourth part of this [Bende Sinyster] which must bee called a batune sinister.

15

1611.  Cotgr., Cottice, a Cottice or Battune.

16

1611.  Gwillim, Heraldry, II. v. 52. Batune is derived from the French word Baston … This is the proper and most vsuall note of Illegitimation, perhaps for the affinitie betwixt Baston and Bastards; or else for that Bastards lost the priuilege of Freemen, and so were subiect to the seruile stroke.

17

1662.  Fuller, Worthies, II. 299. Over all a Batune dexter-ways Argent.

18

1725.  Bradley, Fam. Dict., Battoone, the fourth Part of a Bend Sinister.

19

  4.  Arch. = BASTON 6 (q.v.), BATON 5, BATTEN.

20

1819.  P. Nicholson, Dict. Archit., I. 57. Bastion or Batoon; see Torus.

21

1852.  Archit. Publ. Soc. Dict., I. 45. Baton, Batoon, or Battoon … a name given to the torus between the listel or fillet and the plinth, in the base commonly assigned to the Roman Doric order.

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