# bat five hundred

idiom

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/bat-five-hundred
Updated: 2026-08-10

## Meaning

To be successful half of the time; to have a success rate of 50%.

## Examples

- I only bat five hundred when I try to cook dinner.
- My sales pitches are hit or miss, so I usually bat five hundred at work.
- Although the young lawyer shows great promise, she currently bats five hundred in the courtroom, winning half her cases.

## Origin

The term originates from the statistical conventions of baseball, specifically the practice of reckoning a hitter's batting average in thousandths. A player attaining a success rate of five hundred out of one thousand is thus described as batting five hundred.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.