Word To Use Today: baton.

Useful things, batons.

You can conduct a band with one:



 use them to show how important you are:


This picture is looks as if it was painted by Anthony Van Dyke, but it wasn't.

the baton in this picture shows a marshall's baton.


You can twiddle them in a parade:


Bedford River Festival. Photo Simon Speed.
 or, if you're a member of the police, use them to persuade people to behave.

A baton on a shield looks like this:



in this case, as the baton runs diagonally across the shield from right to left, it shows that parents of the owner of the shield weren't married. This sort of baton is usually called a bar sinister (sinister means it points to the left (if you're carrying the shield)) but it isn't a bar at all. It's a baton.

A bâton de commandement is a rod made from an antler in prehistoric times.



They were probably used when making shafts for arrows and spears.

Baton Rouge is the capital of Louisiana.

A baton round isn't anything at all to do with batons in any shape or form. It's the official name for a plastic bullet. Ouch.

A baton is also a stick passed from one runner to another in a relay race. It is traditionally dropped by at least one of the better teams.

Word To Use Today: baton. This word comes from the French word bâton, from the Latin bastium, a rod, and probably from the Greek bastazein, to lift up or carry.

The town of Baton Rouge got its name when the French explorer d'Iberville discovered a reddish pole festooned with bloody animals which marked the boundary between the Houma and Bayou Goula hunting grounds. He called the site le bâton rouge, or the red stick.