battement
English edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from French battement (“beating, hitting”).
Noun edit
battement (plural battements)
- (ballet) A ballet move involving a beating action with an extended leg
- 1894, Arthur Machen, Memoirs of Casanova[1]:
- […] he raised slowly his rounded arms, stretched them gracefully backward and forward, moved his feet with precision and lightness, took a few small steps, made some battements and pirouettes, and disappeared like a butterfly.
- 1988 March 11, Dorothy Samachson, “Chicago Repertory Dance Ensemble”, in Chicago Reader[2]:
- Ernst and Watson are superb dancers--extraordinarily agile and acrobatic, and their unison spins, battements, and body lines showed a split-second timing.
- (obsolete) A thumping or beating sensation
- 1796, Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, Vol. I[3]:
- Secondly, though there is an audible vertigo, as is known by the battement, or undulations of sound in the ears, which many vertiginous people experience […] .
French edit
Etymology edit
From battre (“to beat”) + -ment.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
battement m (plural battements)
Derived terms edit
Further reading edit
- “battement”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Norman edit
Etymology edit
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Noun edit
battement m (plural battements)