Battement means a beating movement, but don't necessarily jump to the beating of a drum as it can be far more subtle. Le battement des ailes means the flapping of wings, for example, and le battement du coeur is the heart beat. It calls to mind a certain regularity, a pattern of movement. In dance, this refers to the in and out movement of the leg as it opens and closes, and as you can imagine this is performed throughout dance in many different forms.

We've come to shorten the names of many movements by removing the word battement from the common name but the movement remains. For example, we often simply say tendu when it is a battement tendu.

Battement is pronounced [batmɑ̃]. "Batte" is similar to "bat" in english but with a slightly softer, more open A sound, "ment" creates a nasal vowel because the ent combines to form one sound similar to the soft open a but the sound comes out both the nose and the mouth

Below I've compiled a short list of movements comprised of a battement (although this is certainly not a complete list):

Battement tendu (often called tendu)

Battement tendu dégagé OR Battement tendu jeté (often called dégagé)

Battement frappé (often called frappé)

Grand Battement

Battement Battu (where the foot beats in and out of a position like cou-de-pied)

Battement fondu (often called fondu)

… And many, many more …