batty, adj.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

batty adj.¹

[either SE colloq. have bats in the belfry or (although the chronology militates against it) f. the proper name Fitzherbert Batty, a 19C barrister whose certification as mad in 1839 caused much interest]

insane, crazy, eccentric; as batty about/for/over, obsessed (with).

1903		St Paul Globe (MN) 21 Aug. 5/1: Reading in the medical department of a well known daily that chewing gum held many persons from the foolish factory and prevented the already batty ones from becoming violent.
1905		J. London Game 🌐 I’ve seen ’m knocked out and clean batty, an’ go on punching just the same.
1913		F. Klaeber ‘A Word-List From Minnesota’ in DN IV i 10: batty (about), adj. Crazy. ‘That boy is batty about her.’.
1914		Queenslander (Brisbane) 30 May 43/3: The guards has come to accept No. 862 as eccentric — ‘batty,’ they termed it.
1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 158: Course it was a batty piece of work, tryin’ to persuade people to let you push money on ’em.
1920		F. Packard White Moll 263: Pinkie Bonn woke me up. He was half batty with excitement.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 164: I think his sufferings and privations, while he was escaping from Devil’s Island, made him batty.
1930		E. Glyn Flirt and Flapper 73: Flapper: He was batty about her.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 322: Don’t be batty – it’s not much over two years.
1939		R. Chandler Big Sleep 45: He couldn’t be sure she was too batty to see him.
1942		‘Western Desert Madness’ in C.H. Ward-Jackson Airman’s Song Book (1945) 144: Western Desert Madness has taken possession of me, / Now at last I’ve had it, I’m batty as bats can be.
1949		R. Service ‘Montreal Maree’ in Songs of a Sun Lover (1955) 73: He was batty for that babe.
1956		Mad mag. Spring 49: You’re cracked, that’s what ya are. Ya must be batty.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 17: A man ud go batty just talking to himself.
1968		P. Barnes Ruling Class I viii: I know J.C.’s as batty as a moorhen, sir, but this isn’t playing the game.
1972		G.V. Higgins Friends of Eddie Coyle 113: ‘Look,’ Coyle said, ‘They’re all batty.’.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 35: He seemed batty as a loon.
1999		Observer Screen 20 June 23: Batty dogs jumping garden fences.
2008		Daily Mail 8 Feb. 9: A batty old booby, but dangerous with it.

In derivatives

battiness (n.)

madness, eccentricity.

1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 59: Just an open-and-shut piece of battiness, same as fellers have when they jump a bridge.
1952		Atlantic Mag. 188 89: In Capote's lexicon, rationality is the token of a drab and shrunken soul, and eccentricity, preferably a touch of battiness, is a sure sign of grace.
1962		E. Bowen Afterthought 101: The universal battiness of our century looks like providing them with a propitious climate.
1970		A. West David Reese, Among Others 51: He says if there’s any battiness around, that's sure to bring it roaring out.
1982		‘Michael Innes’ Open House 106: The chronic mild battiness of Beddoes Snodgrass, Appleby reflected, might well cause Detective Inspector Stride to despair of him as a reliable witness.
1994		B. Klinger Melodrama & Meaning 106: In a madhouse town, where battiness is practically a vogue, these two guys are terrifically, sensationally, super-colossally normal.
2004		A. Sillitoe Life without Armour 30: His definite vibrations of battiness sometimes exceeded even those of my father [...] He would be diagnosed today as schizophrenic.

batty adj.1

In derivatives

batty adj.¹