The word batter has two common meanings:

1. A mixture of ingredients, usually including flour, eggs, and milk, that gets stirred together before cooking. Pancake batter starts out liquid and pourable, then becomes fluffy and solid when you cook it on a hot griddle. Cake batter, muffin batter, and waffle batter all work the same way: wet ingredients that transform into delicious food through baking or frying. The consistency matters: good batter should be smooth and lump-free, thick enough to coat a spoon but thin enough to pour.
2. A player in baseball or softball who stands at home plate trying to hit the ball. The batter faces the pitcher, grips the bat, and waits for a good pitch to swing at. A skilled batter knows when to swing and when to let a bad pitch go by. After three strikes, the batter is out. After four balls (pitches outside the strike zone), the batter walks to first base. When coaches talk about their “cleanup batter,” they mean the fourth player in the lineup, usually their most powerful hitter.

As a verb, batter means to hit something repeatedly and forcefully, like waves battering a shoreline during a storm or wind battering your windows.