Meanings
verbbat five hundred (third-person singular simple present bats five hundred, present participle batting five hundred, simple past and past participle batted five hundred)
present singular third person bats five hundred · participle present batting five hundred · participle past batted five hundred · past batted five hundred
- idiomaticTo be successful half of the time; to have a success rate of 50%.
Origin
From the practice of reckoning the batting average of a hitter in baseball in thousandths.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
APA
bat five hundred. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bat%20five%20hundred
MLA
“bat five hundred.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bat%20five%20hundred. Accessed November 4, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bat five hundred,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bat%20five%20hundred.
Source: bat five hundred on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.