Also a falconry term:
bate, to, (and bating), to beat the wings impatiently, to flutter; an abortive attempt to leave the fist or perch by jump- ing or flapping the wings but being restrained by the leash or jesses.

A falcon that has bated from the perch is a miserable looking bird.

I'll be in San Antonio TX for the total eclipse on April 8. Is anyone else planning to dance in the shadow of the moon?

I meant the book, in the sense of "a chat, gossip." Remember the first line: "Call me Ishmael."

"What do we do with girl?" Change the "i" to "r" and maybe add another "r" as in "Riot Grrrl"?

This Word of the Day and the timely death of Mr. Kissinger reminded me of an amusing incident that occurred in 1966. That year the Honorable Arthur J. Goldberg, Secretary of State at the time, gave the University of California, Berkeley, Charter Day speech. Due to Mr Kissinger and Mr Goldberg having...

Should we regard Moby Dick as one long schmooze?

According to the link Slava provided "proofing yeast" and "proofing bread" are different things. Proofing yeast proves the yeast is alive and well. What proofing bread proves I don't know. And Slava, thanks for the link. I checked with the Ngram Viewer: "proofing bread"...

Japan used to have an active cosplay scene -- I'd see lots of small groups of folks walking around dressed to cosplay (in cosplay mode? cosplaying?) in Odaiba, the magic island in Tokyo bay. But not recently. As for LARP, the New Yorker had a piece on it a year ago. I gather this gathering gathered ...

What is this talk of "proving"bread? Is this the step in making yeast bread when the bread is allowed to RISE until double in bulk? I have consulted "Joy of Cooking," facsimile of the first edition, and in the discussion of bread and bread making there, the words "proof"...

Mr Kovacs, I'm sorry, but your "Corrected text" is as clear as mud. Would you please define or explain "mesne"? I looked it up using the dictionary link on the top page of this site and did not find the Collins definition below helpful. 1. intermediate or intervening: used esp of...

I had the same thought, but then I noticed the phase ". . . found also behind Sanskrit catvara, Persian čatvar, Greek tessares, Latin quattuor, Armenian chors, Russian četyre, Serbian četiri, Polish cztery, Lithuanian keturi, Latvian četri, Irish ceathair, and Welsh pedwar (where Č = CH)" ...

bbeeton, I don't know if this example will help, but I have been reading an academic tome, "How to Read a Japanese Poem" by Steven D. Carter, Columbia University Press, 2019. And in it I came across the following sentence. (You gotta read all the way to the end) This tradition continues to...

I am confused. Is "indulbence" a typo for "indulgence"? If so, why post it? If not, why is the entire content of the "indulbence" post appear to be a re-post of Good Word Dictionary entry for "indulgence"? Note that Good Word Dictionary does not, as of Oct 19,...

The definition of "eponym" on this site -- "A personal name from which a regular word is derived" and the definition for "toponym" here would suggest a toponym is not an eponym. Yet the first example of an eponym is "Bedlam . . . [from the] Cockney pronunciation of...

How about "Solon" an eponym from the Athenian statesman 630 to 560 BC