batwing

English

The wing of a bat.

A saloon with two pairs of batwing doors.

Alternative forms

• bat wing, bat-wing, bat's wing

Etymology

From bat +‎ wing.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

batwing (plural batwings)

1. The wing of a bat, or its shape.
   • 1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 491:

     The junk was nearer, beating in toward the island, her brown batwing sail suddenly tall and terribly conspicuous against the sky.

   • 1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 94:

     His batwings were somehow more frightening for being the pathetic broken floundering things they were than if they had been strong, muscular beaters of the air.

2. Several South or Southeast Asian species of tailless dark swallowtail butterflies in the genus Atrophaneura.
3. (slang) An area of flabby fat under a person's arms.
4. A long sleeve with a deep armhole, tapering toward the wrist.

   Synonym: magyar sleeve

5. One of a pair of swinging doors which typically do not lock nor cover the full vertical range of the doorway (leaving a large gap at the top and bottom), common especially in saloons.
   • 2005 April 5, Ralph Compton, Peter Brandvold, Ralph Compton Navarro, Penguin, →ISBN:

     The cantina was a flatroofed adobe, painfully white in the unrelenting sun, with a brush roof and splintery batwings. The doors swung back and forth as a man stepped before them and stood beneath the brush arbor, staring at Navarro, […]

   • 2010 March 2, Jon Sharpe, The Trailsman #341: Sierra Six-Guns, Penguin, →ISBN:

     He made it to the saloon undetected and slipped under the batwing and over to the table where he had left his saddlebags. They weren't there. Fargo ran his hands over the top of the table to be sure, and swore.

   • 2012, James E. Ferrell, Cross-Pull, page 385:

     A tall figure stepped up to the batwing doors of the saloon as Tommy and Matt passed.

   • 2016 July 31, James Clay, Hard Stone, Robert Hale Ltd, →ISBN:

     Feigning indifference, Stacey strolled quickly toward the batwings. Looking over the doors he saw Snow and his companions walking in the direction of the hotel, but he couldn't be sure that was where they were actually headed.

   • 2021 November 23, Conn Hamlett, John Lee Johnson in the Valley of the Sun: Along Came Jones, AuthorHouse, →ISBN:

     Reaching the saloon, John pulled back the right batwing and nodded for Utah Jimmy and Memphis Mayford to enter. After they went inside, John led them to the receiving line. The milling crowd moved aside quickly, […]

6. (often attributive) An exercise or posture on the stomach wherein a dumbbell row or lateral raise is performed.

Derived terms

• batwinged