Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to hit, to attack; as n., a violent person; thus batty-fanging/-fagging n., a beating.

1630		J. Taylor in Works II 192/1: A poore labouring man was married and matched to a creature that so much used to scold waking, that she had much adoe to refraine it sleeping, so that the poore man was so batterfang’d and belabour’d with tongue mettle, that he was weary of his life.
1716		T. Ward England’s Reformation (1742) I 138: The Pastor lays on lusty Bangs, Whitehead the Pastor Batterfangs .
1822		R. Nares Gloss. (1888) I 61: †batterfanged. Beaten.
1836		D. Crockett in Meine Crockett Almanacks (1955) 49: What should he see but his landlady with a big knotted club in her hand batterfanging a dozen rattle snakes.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 71: BATTY-FANG, to beat; batty-fanging, a beating; also batter-fang.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1898		(con. 1875) F.T. Bullen Cruise of the ‘Cachalot’ 86: The [...] hurrying wind will take no denial, and you’ve got to ‘git up an’ git,’ as the Yanks put it. Such a time succeeded our ‘batterfanging’ about, after losing the trades.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 289/1: battyfang to hide and bite.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 31: She goosestepped round the battyfanged outline of the Bastille.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 55: I inadvertently stamped upon the poor batatat’s eek in the heat of the battyfanging.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 123: [I] schonked screeched spat wept and battyfangled.