straight bat

British

noun

cricket a bat held vertically
informal honest or honourable behaviour

"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

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Farrell played a straight bat when asked whether he thought those complaints had had an impact.

From Barron's • Nov. 22, 2025

Farrell's persona - straight bat, straight face and flat vowels - sticks out in a sporting world of spin and schmooze.

From BBC • Nov. 17, 2022

"The best way to get this on to the statute books is to play this with a very straight bat."

From BBC • Mar. 3, 2021

The Twitterati were protesting again over the scheduling of her Riske match on Court Two but the former cricketer played a straight bat to reporters’ queries, saying: “I’ll play on any court I’m scheduled on.”

From Reuters • Jul. 9, 2019

He had really done extremely well, and played with a straight bat at everything—therefore he did not get out.

From War Letters of a Public-School Boy by Jones, Henry Paul Mainwaring

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023