(obsolete) A child's hornbook for learning the alphabet. 1802, William Hutton, The History of the Roman Wall, preface You will also pardon the errors of the Work, for you know I was not bred to letters; but, that the battledore, at an age not exceeding six, was the last book I used at school. (obsolete) A bat or beetle used in washing clothes.
The parachute, like the helicopter and the hang glider, dates back to the drawings of mankind's greatest public genius, Leonardo da Vinci.
He designed the first sketch of a parachute in the mid 1480s (probably 1485), which is the first documentation of this idea in western history. However, the idea or using air resistance to slow a fall goes back much earlier. We can trace this principal back to the ancient periods of China.