Batting

How to spell batting

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce batting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does batting mean?

1. nounThe action or skill of hitting the ball with a bat in cricket or baseball.
2. nounSheets of matted cotton or wool used as padding, stuffing, or insulation.

Batting in a sentence

• His batting improved sharply after the winter coaching sessions.

• She layered cotton batting between the quilt top and the backing.

• The team's batting collapsed in the final hour of play.

• The upholsterer packed extra batting into the worn cushion.

Where does batting come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The core word 'bat' reaches back to Old English 'batt', meaning a club, cudgel, or heavy stick, and that sense was reinforced by the Old French 'batte', a beating instrument, both linked to the Latin verb 'battuere', meaning 'to beat or strike'. By the eighteenth century 'bat' had narrowed in sport to the shaped club used to strike a ball, and the verb 'to bat' followed naturally. The form 'batting' is simply that verb turned into a gerund and noun, with the consonant doubled because the stressed short vowel rule requires it, which is the small spelling trap here: one 't' becomes two before the ending. A separate textile sense developed from the related verb 'to bat', meaning to beat fibres flat, giving 'batting' as the name for matted sheets of cotton or wool. Both meanings therefore trace back to the same ancient idea of striking and beating.

How the word is built

• bat (the implement or to strike)
• -t- (doubled consonant after a short stressed vowel)
• -ing (gerund/noun suffix)