Brewer's: Batta

or Batty (Hindustanee). Perquisites; wages. Properly, an allowance to East Indian troops in the field. In garrison they are put on half-batta.

“He would rather live on half-pay in a garrison that could boast of a fives-court, than vegetate on full batta where there was none.” —G.R. Gleig: Thomas Munro, vol. i. chap. iv. p. 227.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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