From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbattenbat‧ten1 /ˈbætn/ verb 1 → batten down the hatches2 → batten on somebody→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
batten• She could do nothing but batten down the conversational hatches and wait until the storm blew itself out.• Scholars will be battening on the footnotes for years to come.• The same mud which sucked at my shoe, battening on the heel like an animal.• Such societies or covens batten on their own secrecy.• It will be necessary to batten the ceiling to take the new boards.battenbatten2 noun [countable] TBCa long narrow piece of wood that is attached to other pieces of wood or another building material to strengthen them and keep them in placeExamples from the Corpus
batten• I prized a batten off the wall behind my bed.• A dual batten option is commonplace, enabling the sail to be set soft if desired.• Dual batten system A way of saying that the sail can use full or half length battens.• And as an aid to drilling, make a simple template from a length of batten.• Fix the batten in place with angle brackets, then attach the blind with touch-and-close fastener.• I nailed the batten back on top.• The board is then cut to size and screwed on to the battens.Origin batten2 (1600-1700) French bâton; → BATON 