Forms: 5 bater(e, -our, -owre, -ure, 6 battre, 7– batter. [prob. f. BATTER v.1; cf. however OF. bature, -eure action of beating, also metal beaten into thin leaf.]
I. Materials beaten or battered.
1. A mixture of two or more ingredients beaten up with a liquid for culinary purposes.
c. 1420. Liber Cocorum (1862), 26. Of almond mylke and amydone, Make bater.
a. 1500. Recipes, in Babees Bk. (1868), 53. Make bature of floure, ale, peper & saferon, with oþer spices.
1615. Markham, Eng. Housew. (1660), 56. Taking the Apples and Batter out together with a spoon.
1796. Mrs. Glasse, Cookery, viii. 140. Dip the oysters in a batter.
1879. Beerbohm, Patagonia, xi. 171. The batter must be stirred well, or else it will stick to the sides.
b. Sc. Flour and water made into ‘paste’; transf. that which is pasted upon walls, etc. (obs.)
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 27. Batowre of flowre and mele wyth water (v.r. batour), mola.
1530. Palsgr., 197/1. Batter of floure, paste.]
1624. A. H., Paper-Persec., in J. Davies, Papers Compl., Wks. 1878, II. 81. To see such Batter euerie weeke besmeare Each publike post, and Church dore.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. vii. Multiple ruffs of cloth, pasted together with batter.
c. attrib., as in batter-cake, pan, pudding.
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 167. Batter and rice puddings [require] a quick oven.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxiv. (1856), 306. Flattened it out like a batter-cake.
2. transf. A thick paste of any kind, of the consistency of cook’s batter; liquid mud.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 555. The batter or lome that goeth to the making of [bricks].
1884. Ld. Coleridge, in Law Times Rep., 19 July, 635/1. They had swept mud in a state of batter to the side of a road by means of ‘squeegees.’
† 3. = BATTERY 13. Obs.
1567. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1835), 278. One batter kettill, and a brasse chaffer.
II. The action or result of battering.
4. A heavy bruising blow. rare.
1823. Galt, Entail, I. xxviii. 245. Such a thundering batter on the ribs, that he fell reeling from the shock.
5. A cannonade of heavy ordnance against a fortress.
1859. in Worcester.
6. Printing. A bruise on the face of printing type or stereotype plate. (Cf. BATTER v.1 4.)
1824. J. Johnson, Typogr., II. xxii. 659. The pressmen never observe a batter (unless it be very glaring), because they would be stopped in their progress.
1880. Printing Times, 15 May, 102/2. Defective letters or batters may thus be easily detected.
