Baton

How to spell baton

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce baton

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does baton mean?

1. nounA short stick or rod, such as one passed between runners in a relay or carried as a symbol of office.
2. nounThe thin stick a conductor uses to direct an orchestra or choir.

Baton in a sentence

• The runner dropped the baton just before the final exchange.

• The conductor raised her baton and the orchestra fell silent.

• Each athlete gripped the baton tightly during the changeover.

• A sharp tap of the baton brought the players to attention.

Where does baton come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English from the French bâton, meaning a stick or staff, which in older French was spelled baston. That older spelling preserved an s that the modern French circumflex now silently marks, and it descends from the Late Latin bastum, meaning a stout stick or cudgel, possibly tied to a verb meaning to support or carry. English borrowed it in the seventeenth century, at first for a staff carried as a sign of office or authority, and the meaning later spread to the slender stick a conductor waves, the rod passed in a relay race, and the short club carried by police. The same French root also gives us the heavier word truncheon and the architectural bastion through related lines. The unfamiliar single t and the plain -on ending are the spelling traps, since speakers half expect a doubled t to match the short vowel many of them say.

How the word is built

• baton (from French bâton: a stick or staff), a single unanalysable root in English