(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.
The oldest parachute design appears in an anonymous manuscript from 1470s Renaissance Italy (British Museum Add. MSS 34,113, fol. 200v), showing a free-hanging man clutching a cross bar frame attached to a conical canopy. As a safety measure, four straps run from the ends of the rods to a waist belt.