battledore

noun

Etymology: From Middle English batildore, batylledore, batildure, batyldoure, batyndore, probably as a blend of Middle English betel (“bat, club”) and Old Occitan batedor (“beater, bat”).

1. A game played with a shuttlecock and rackets (properly battledore and shuttlecock); a forerunner of badminton.
2. The racket used in this game.

   “Seven or eight of them, standing in a circle, were engaged in a game of shittlecock. They had in their hands no battledores. They did not employ the hand or arm, any way, in striking it. But, after taking a short race, and springing from the floor, they met the descending shittlecock with the sole of the foot, and drove it up again, with force, high into the air.”

   “There were nights when it seemed to me that our position could be stormed by twenty Boy Scouts armed with airguns, or twenty Girl Guides armed with battledores, for that matter.”

3. A child's hornbook for learning the alphabet.

   “You will also pardon the errors of the Work, for you know I was not bred to letters; but, that the battledore, at an age not exceeding six, was the last book I used at school.”

4. A wooden paddle-shaped bat or beetle used to wash clothes by beating, stirring, or smoothing them.

   “There is a large basin near the fountain, where numbers of women may be seen every day, kneeling at the edge of the water, and beating the clothes with heavy pieces of wood in the shape of battledores.”

   “The laundry process of the time [1665] consisted of boiling textiles with lye or soap and then beating them with a battledore, a rustic version of a cricket bat.”