Word.ws English Dictionary

bat-fowling

bat-fowling noun: the catching of small birds at night by lighting a fire near their roost, then scaring them awake whereupon they fly towards the flames and can be caught in nets on poles.

Noun

bat-fowling (uncountable)

  1. The catching of small birds at night by lighting a fire near their roost, then scaring them awake whereupon they fly towards the flames and can be caught in nets on poles.
    • We would so, and then go a-bat-fowling.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...

Questions about bat-fowling

What does bat-fowling mean?
Bat-fowling means the catching of small birds at night by lighting a fire near their roost, then scaring them awake whereupon they fly towards the flames and can be caught in nets on poles.
What part of speech is bat-fowling?
Bat-fowling is a noun.

Words near bat-fowling in the dictionary

  1. bat-eared fox
  2. bat-eared foxes
  3. Bat-embargo
  4. bat-fowler
  5. bat-fowlers
  6. bat-fowling
  7. bat-horse
  8. bat-horses
  9. bat-house
  10. bat-houses
  11. bat-mitzvah

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bat-fowling (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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