bat » batter

Chiefly in:   batter an eyelid

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • Hilarious film, it takes the piss so bad. When the black guys walk into the shop and get eyed up by the chinese owners, meanwhile the white guy with a huge jacket loots the place and nobody even batters an eyelid. (link)
  • All the while, an-Nuayman did not laugh or batter an eyelid. (link)
  • But my little boy didn’t get scared or batter an eyelid when he first came to visit me. It made me cry. (link)
  • You realise that your life has no meaning whatsoever, and that 99.99% of the world would not batter an eyelid at your death. (link)
  • It was unprecedented and he was taken aback but she had battered her eye lashes and smiled her special smile that made the dimples in her cheeks appear even deeper and cuter than they normally were, and of course he had relented. (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

Unsurprisingly, the substitution _bat » batter_ is more common in _batter an eyelid_ than in _batter an eye_.

According to AHD4, _bat_ is “probably” a variant of _bate_, which is already involved in the eggcorn _baited breath_.

| link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/07/18 |

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