[f. BALD a.] One who has a bald head; transf. a kind of duck, and pigeon.
1601. Dent, Pathw. Heaven, 131. Mocked Elisha … calling him bald-head, bald-pate.
1865. E. Noel, Richter’s Flower Pieces (1871), I. v. 141. But had solicited the bald-pates in vain.
1883. Century Mag., XXVI. 925. Mallard, baldpate, and wood-duck.
b. attrib. quasi-adj. = BALD a. (in various senses).
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 405. Osmunde baldepate or Pylde Osmunde.
c. 1590. Marlowe, Faust., vii. 48. A troop of Baldpate friars.
1683. Soame & Dryden, Art of Poetry, I. (T.). Nor … periwig with wool the baldpate woods.
1827. Montgomery, Pelican Isl., II. 244. Swarms … Cover’d the bald-pate reef.
