batiste

From French batiste, a form of Baptiste, of disputed origin (“according to Littré and Scheler from the alleged original maker, Baptiste of Cambray; according to others, from its use in wiping the heads of children after baptism” – OED).

• IPA^(key): /bəˈtiːst/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːst

batiste (countable and uncountable, plural batistes)

1. A fine cloth made from cotton or linen; cambric.
   • 1916, “Smocking”, in The Dressmaker: A Complete Book on All Matters Connected with Sewing and Dressmaking […], 2nd revised and enlarged edition, New York, N.Y., London: The Butterick Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 29:

     Smocking done in colors on fine white batiste, silk mull, or nainsook makes pretty guimpes and dresses for children and very smart blouses for women.

   • 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 104

     Clad in a Persian-Renaissance gown and a widow's tiara of white batiste, Mrs Thoroughfare, in all the ferment of a Marriage-Christening, left her chamber on vapoury autumn day and descending a few stairs, and climbing a few others, knocked a trifle brusquely at her son's wife's door.

   • 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin, published 2011, page 88:

     He had started to stroke her, shivering, staring ahead, following with a blind man's hand the dip of her spine through the batiste.

• baitest, batties, beats it, bistate

From Picard Middle French batiche (c. 1400), probably derived from battre (“to beat”). Alternatively suggested to go back to a manufacturer by the name of Baptiste, but this rests entirely on conjecture as no such manufacturer is known. It is possible, however, that the form was influenced by the same association.

• IPA^(key): /ba.tist/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophone: baptiste

batiste f (plural batistes)

1. cambric (textile)

• → German: Batist
• → Russian: батист (batist)
  • → Georgian: ბატისტი (baṭisṭi)

• “batiste”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

batiste f

1. plural of batista

• bastite, sbattei, sbietta

batiste

1. second-person singular preterite indicative of batir