Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.) a prison sentence.

1865

Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 156/2: Perhaps she thought me ‘lagged,’ or at least ‘doing’ heavy ‘bat of stir’.

2. a pace, a speed, a stroke.

1826		Morn. Advertiser (London) 29 Apr. 3/3: Bustard took the lead and kept at a good bat to the Bushes, where Butterfly came up, and a head to head race followed.
1843		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1854) 430: He [i.e. a horse] can go a good bat, too, when he’s roused.
1850		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 3 Mar. 3/3: He [i.e. a horse] go’s a rattlin good bat.
1852		Bell’s Life in Sydney 4 Sept. 3/1: Mary Ann went off from the jump in a rare bat.
1873		Sl. Dict. Bat pace at walking or running. As, ‘He went off at a good bat.’.
1880		Daily Tel. 11 Mar. n.p.: going off at a lively bat of 34... the boat travelled at a good pace [F&H].
1887		‘’Arry on Ochre’ in Punch 15 Oct. 169/1: That Loo / Was a rattler to keep up the pace while a bloke ’ad a brown left to blue. / Clared me out a rare bat [...] no Savings Bank lay about her.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 10 May 6/1: Going at a smart ’bat,’ the pack proceeded along the Urana-road.
1891		Sporting Times 10 Jan. 1/3: From his lodgings he strode at a deuce of a ‘bat’.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 230: He caught the horse’s shoulder with his spur, and turned him upside down, going at that bat.
1908		L. Doyle Ballygullion 180: Just on the bat av nine we come to the foot av the loanin’.
1916		‘Anzac’ On the Anzac Trail 8: [of a route march] [T]wice a week or so we put in a fifteen to twenty mile stunt, cutting out the pace at a good round bat.
1922		E. Dyson Missing Link 🌐 Ch. xii: Get through at a good bat, and they won’t have time to look twice at the man-monkey before it’s all over.
1938		F. Anthony ‘Gus Tomlins’ in Me And Gus (1977) 102: Nick came running out of the hall, and passed me going at a tremendous bat.
1940		J.G. Brandon Gang War 228: It’s going up at a good bat, too.
1958		D. Stivens Scholarly Mouse and other Tales 65: He turned in from the road and smoked up the track at a hell of a bat.

3. (orig. US) a spree, a binge.

1846		implied in on a bat
1894		Mirror of Life 3 Mar. 2/2: A poor Chinaman is satisfied with a two-days’ ‘bat’.
1899		W.J. Kountz Billy Baxter’s Letters 18: I always cry some time during a bat, and [...] I cried so hard that the bartender had to ask me to stop three different times.
1900		A.H. Lewis ‘Hamilton Finnerty’s Heart’ in Sandburrs 63: He had been on bats before.
1909		W. Irwin Confessions of a Con Man 63: The regular lion man had gone on a Fourth of July bat.
1910		H. Hapgood Types From City Streets 268: Two unhappy and lonely beings meet and have a regular ‘bat’ in romanticism and soul-sickness.
1914		S. Lewis Our Mr Wrenn (1936) 162: Now, Charley [...] your bat’s over, ain’t it, old man?
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 75: Did you just want to run away from Mama for a while and we have a bat at the ‘Grand’ together?
1931		J. O’Hara ‘Alone’ in Scribner’s Dec. 647/1: [I]t would be a good idea to take a trip somewhere and go on a mild bat.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 94: We promised each other one more big bat.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).

4. the price.

1934

P. Allingham Cheapjack 221: I was nervous about ‘coming to the bat’. [Ibid.] 317: Bat – Price. ‘To come to the bat’, to mention the price.

5. (US black) a job.

1944

‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.