Word.ws English Dictionary

bat an eyelid

bat an eyelid verb: to react in any slight way; to respond; to care.

Verb

bat an eyelid (third-person singular simple present bats an eyelid, present participle batting an eyelid, simple past and past participle batted an eyelid)

  1. (idiomatic) To react in any slight way; to respond; to care.
    • When laptop computers first came out they were something of a novelty. These days, nobody bats an eyelid.
    • […]he got the drop on Cox, the only time I had seen or heard of its being done — had his pistol out and stuck in Cox's face before Cox could bat an eyelid.1914, Edgar Beecher Bronson, The Vanguard, page 155

Examples of bat an eyelid in a sentence

  • But here in a land whose resources and infrastructure cannot sustain such frivolity, the barber doesn't even bat an eyelid.2006, Pete Takeda, An Eye at the Top of the World, page 116:
  • Most people wouldn't bat an eyelid at public displays of affection between same-sex couples[…]2007, Fionn Davenport, Dublin Encounter, page 153:

Synonyms of bat an eyelid

Forms of bat an eyelid

third-person singular presentbats an eyelid
present participlebatting an eyelid
past participlebatted an eyelid
pastbatted an eyelid

Origin of bat an eyelid

From bat (“flutter”), circa 1900.

Words formed from bat an eyelid

Questions about bat an eyelid

What does bat an eyelid mean?
Bat an eyelid means to react in any slight way; to respond; to care.
How do you use bat an eyelid in a sentence?
But here in a land whose resources and infrastructure cannot sustain such frivolity, the barber doesn't even bat an eyelid.
What part of speech is bat an eyelid?
Bat an eyelid is a verb.
What is the past tense of bat an eyelid?
The past tense of bat an eyelid is batted an eyelid.

Words near bat an eyelid in the dictionary

  1. bat
  2. bat a thousand
  3. bat about
  4. bat an eye
  5. bat an eyelash
  6. bat an eyelid
  7. bat and ball
  8. bat around
  9. bat away
  10. bat bomb
  11. bat box

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bat an eyelid (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-bat an eyelid.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bat an eyelid.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bat_an_eyelid. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.