Bats

Do the words (1) bat as in a baseball bat, (2) bat as in the rodent, and (3) bat as in batting one's eyelashes have anything to do with each other?

(1) bat, n. This word comes from the Old English word batt, so that would date from somewhere between the 5th and the 12th centuries.

(2) bat, n. The word for the animal bat is an alteration of backe (North Germanic word) from the late 16th century.

(3) bat, v. The word for batting one's eyelashes comes from an early 19th century variation of the word bate. Bate dates from the 13th century as from an Old French word, batre, which comes from the Latin root battuere ("to beat"), which, incidentally is the root word for the verb batter, "to beat something repeatedly with heavy blows".

So backes batteure their wings, and battuere backe balls with batts, but theoretically the three bats all have completely different roots... And then you have the German word for the animal bat:

fledermaus - "flying mouse"

Not even related to the Germanic root for our word for the animal.

I love linguistics.