bat n.5
in pl., insanity, esp. manifested in a drinker’s delirium tremens.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Life in Sing Sing 246: Bats. Delirium tremens. | |
| Keys to Crookdom 397: Bats. Crazy, delirium tremens. | |
| Pimp 156: A stud would have to be slick as grease to plant bats in the skull of a bitch that was sane. |
In compounds
(US tramp) a psychiatric institution.
| ‘Hugh McHugh’ Back to the Woods 38: I could see myself in the giggle-giggle ward in a bat house. | |
| Pacific Reporter 165 1152/1: Affidavit Tom [...] clearly indicates that he should be sent to the bug house, the crazy house, the foolish house, the bat house, the looney house, the mad house, the nutty house. | |
| Let Tomorrow Come 267: An insane asylum [...] bathouse. | |
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 22: Bat house – An insane asylum ; a place where are confined those ‘batty’ or with ‘bats in the belfry,’ which expression has been shortened in vagabondia to ‘bats’ or ‘batty’. | |
| World’s Toughest Prison 790: bat house – Insane asylum. | |
| Straight Dope [ebook] Did she tell you her mother was in the bat house? |
mad, crazy, insane.
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
In phrases
out of control.
| ‘Fist and Fang’ Fight Stories May 🌐 ‘All right, you black swine!’ I yelled at him, kind of off my bat, I reckon. ‘Go ahead—do your worst!’. |
to be eccentric or insane.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Chambers’s Journal 740/2: Have you taken the ‘bats’ or what? [OED]. |