battledore and shuttlecock

Noun

 * 1)  An early version of the game badminton.
 * 2) * 1953 — Bertrand Russell,  'Satan in the Suburbs'  or  ' Horrors Manufactured Here' . (A short story published in  'Satan in the Suburbs and other stories' , Penguin Books (1953), at p.19.)
 * At night before I slept alternate horrors of ruin buffeted me this way and that in an endless game of battledore and shuttlecock.
 * At night before I slept alternate horrors of ruin buffeted me this way and that in an endless game of battledore and shuttlecock.