I agree with Brian, Marion.

...bat-
ting

and

...Fig-
aro

are brilliant - though, over here, we use the phrase 'batting an eyelid' rather than an 'eyelash'.

Don't promise to make it your last one! Yours top everyone else's; you surely have to win this one :)

Jayne

I saw a pig
attack a bat
then kill a cat
and steal its wig.
It danced a jig
around a hat
then killed a rat
and stole its fig.
I do not lie!
My eyes are red
because I sob
that poor cats die
without a bed
and fat pigs rob.

... over here, we use the phrase 'batting an eyelid' rather than an 'eyelash'.

Jayne,

I hate to take issue with you so shortly after becoming a member, but surely even in the Authorized Version (ours) of the English language, the phrase is "batting her eyelashes"?

Brian

Ooops! I must have nodded. (Well, even "Homer" Greenwell does so occasionally.) I didn't read backwards carefully enough. The phrase is indeed "without batting an eyelid". "Batting her eyelashes" is something quite different, and altogether more enticing - that's probably why I seized on it.

Brian, COD gives for third sense of bat v.tr. not (or never) bat an eyelid (or eye) colloq show no reaction or emotion. (variant of obsolete bate 'flutter')

Seems the collocation with bat is ony negative. The positive combination 'flutter the eyelashes' (at) occurs, I think, meaning 'signal', though not 'flutter the eyelids'.

Do you mean Mozart's or Rossini's, Brian?

The one that has "Figaro" in the title, John. For me, "Rossini" is a kind of steak with foie gras on top.

Curiously, "foie gras" is an anagram of "Figaroes".

Jerome, I agree with the definition of "didn't bat an eyelid".

But I don't agree that "bat" is used only with the negative. "She fluttered her eyelashes at me" and "She batted her eyelashes at me" are synonymous.

The "negative collocation" comes from the fact that these days, pretty girls neither bat nor flutter their eyelashes at me.

Brian, you malign the man. Rossini is OK.

Well, there you have it, John. Who could ever describe Mozart as "OK"?

Brian, the OED (12-vol online etc) says:

2. trans. (orig. dial. and in U.S.) to bat the eyes : to move the eyelids quickly, to wink. Also freq. in colloq. phr. (normally in negative form), not to bat an eye, eyelid , etc. (a) not to sleep a wink; (b) to betray no emotion (orig. U.S.).

Out of 12 citations from 1838 to 1959 five (batting the eye or eyes) have the meaning 'wink', two have the word 'eyelid', and only two seem to be used positively. There is only one occurrence of 'lash'. ('without batting a lash'')

Maybe there's a BE/AE difference. All I can say is that 'batting the eye-lashes (at)' is not something I can recall hearing, whereas 'fluttering the eyelashes (at)' is.