batiste

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).

• IPA^(key): /bəˈtiːst/

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batiste (countable and uncountable, plural batistes)

1. A fine cloth made from cotton or linen; cambric.
   • 1916, “Smocking”, in The Dressmaker: A Complete Book on All Matters Connected with Sewing and Dressmaking […], 2nd revised and enlarged edition, New York, N.Y., London: The Butterick Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 29:

     Smocking done in colors on fine white batiste, silk mull, or nainsook makes pretty guimpes and dresses for children and very smart blouses for women.

   • 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 104

     Clad 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, published 2011, page 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.

• baitest, batties, beats it, bistate

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batiste f (plural batistes)

1. cambric

• → Russian: батист (batist)
  • → Georgian: ბატისტი (baṭisṭi)

• “batiste”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

batiste f

1. plural of batista

• bastite, sbattei, sbietta

batiste

1. second-person singular preterite indicative of batir