Also 9 battu. [F. (= Pr. batuda, It. battuta, L. type batūta) ‘a beating, a beat-up,’ sb. formed on fem. pa. pple. of battre to beat. (Analogous to those in -ATA, -ADE.)]
1. The driving of game from cover (by beating the bushes, etc., in which they lodge) to a point where a number of sportsmen wait to shoot them.
1816. Gentl. Mag., LXXXVI. I. 414. The keen Sportsman … and a favoured few, on a set day, have the Grand Battu.
1860. All Y. Round, No. 71. 485. A battue is a contrivance for killing the largest quantity of game in the smallest time, with the least amount of trouble, by a small select party.
attrib. 1849. Cobden, Speeches, 52. That modern innovation of battue shooting, which was not known in 1790.
2. transf. a. A beat up, a thorough search. b. Wholesale slaughter, esp. of unresisting crowds.
1854. Cdl. Wiseman, Fabiola, I. viii. 43. Ordered a grand general battue through every part of the house where Syra had been.
1864. Burton, Scot Abr., I. iv. 162. The great battue of St. Bartholomew’s Day.
3. The game thus driven from cover.
1849. in Smart.
