batty

[bat-ee]

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adjective, bat·ti·er, bat·ti·est. Slang.

insane; crazy; eccentric.

Origin of batty

bat² + -y¹

Related formsbat·ti·ness, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for batty

nuts, wacky, deranged, foolish, insane, silly, loco

Examples from the Web for batty

Contemporary Examples of batty

The song title “Batty Man Fi Dead,” for example, means “All Faggots Should Be Killed.”
How Maurice Tomlinson Was Outed in Jamaica—and Forced Into Exile
Jay Michaelson
December 9, 2014
It should go without saying that his ideas about how to fight poverty are as a batty as they come, completely driven by ideology.
Boehner, the Tea Party, and the Ryan Express
Michael Tomasky
December 13, 2013
And the two of us say that paying college athletes their "fair-market value" is a batty idea.
Kevin Ware and Market Value of College Athletes
Michael Tomasky
April 2, 2013

Historical Examples of batty

Either he's batty or else he's pretendin' to be, one or the other.
Shavings
Joseph C. Lincoln
I had a batty idea that the next whiff of breeze would jar it loose.
Shorty McCabe
Sewell Ford
So far as looks went, we were just as batty as Sir Peter with his wooden hat.
Shorty McCabe
Sewell Ford
Ma says as how ye could be made into a woman if ye hadn't got batty with birds and things.
Tess of the Storm Country
Grace Miller White
Guess I must have sat there, starin' bug-eyed and lookin' batty, from 14th to Wall.
Torchy
Sewell Ford

British Dictionary definitions for batty

batty

adjective -tier or -tiest slang

insane; crazy

odd; eccentric

Word Origin for batty

C20: from bat ²; compare the phrase have bats in the belfry

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for batty

adj.

1580s, "pertaining to bats," from bat (n.2) + -y (2). Slang sense "nuts, crazy" is attested from 1903, from the expression (to have) bats in (one's) belfry, also meaning "not be right in the head" (1899).