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prettygoodwordmakebate (MAYK-bayt) - n., someone who causes contention and quarrels, an inciter.
Also, another name for bush jasmine (Jasminum fruticans), but most dictionaries don't even notice it, so I'll just leave that aside. The bates that such a person is making is an obsolete term, meaning strife, coming from Latin battere, to fight/beat, which is the root of debate and (via French) batter. The term dates to 1529 and has been rarely used since Elizabethan times (though Sir Walter Scott gave it an early 19th century boost).
---L.
Also, another name for bush jasmine (Jasminum fruticans), but most dictionaries don't even notice it, so I'll just leave that aside. The bates that such a person is making is an obsolete term, meaning strife, coming from Latin battere, to fight/beat, which is the root of debate and (via French) batter. The term dates to 1529 and has been rarely used since Elizabethan times (though Sir Walter Scott gave it an early 19th century boost).
---L.
