Batiste

Pronunciation

• IPA: /bəˈtiːst/

Origin

From French batiste, a form of Baptiste, of disputed origin (“according to Littré and Scheler from the alleged original maker, Baptiste of Cambray; according to others, from its use in wiping the heads of children after baptism” – OED).

Full definition of batiste

Noun

1. A fine cloth made from cotton or linen; cambric.
• 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 104Clad in a Persian-Renaissance gown and a widow's tiara of white batiste, Mrs Thoroughfare, in all the ferment of a Marriage-Christening, left her chamber on vapoury autumn day and descending a few stairs, and climbing a few others, knocked a trifle brusquely at her son's wife's door.
• 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin 2011, p. 88:He had started to stroke her, shivering, staring ahead, following with a blind man's hand the dip of her spine through the batiste.

Anagrams

• batties, bistate