baton

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Music A slender wooden stick or rod used by a conductor to direct an orchestra, band, or other musical group.
• noun A hollow metal rod with a heavy rubber tip or tips that is wielded and twirled by a drum major or drum majorette.
• noun A short staff carried by certain public officials as a symbol of office.
• noun Sports The hollow cylinder that is carried by each member of a relay team in a running race and passed to the next team member.
• noun A short stick carried by police; a billy club.
• noun Heraldry A shortened narrow bend, often signifying bastardy.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To strike with a baton; cudgel.
• noun A staff or club; a truncheon: carried either for use as a weapon, as a policeman's baton;
• noun as a mark of authority, as the baton of a field-marshal; or
• noun as a warrant to do something, as the baton or staff carried in Great Britain by the engineer of a train on a single-track railway, as his authority to proceed.
• noun In music: The stick or wand used by the leader of a chorus or an orchestra in directing the performance.
• noun A rest of two or more measures.
• noun In heraldry, same as baston, 1 .
• noun Also spelled batton.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A staff or truncheon, used for various purposes.
• noun (Her.) An ordinary with its ends cut off, borne sinister as a mark of bastardy, and containing one fourth in breadth of the bend sinister; -- called also bastard bar. See Bend sinister.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A staff or truncheon, used for various purposes; as, the baton of a field marshal
• noun music The stick of a conductor in musical performances.
• noun sports An object transferred by runners in a relay race.
• noun A short stout club used primarily by policemen.
• noun heraldry An abatement in coats of arms to denote illegitimacy. (Also spelled batune, baston).
• verb To strike with a baton.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a short stout club used primarily by policemen
• noun a hollow metal rod that is wielded or twirled by a drum major or drum majorette
• noun a short staff carried by some officials to symbolize an office or an authority
• noun a hollow cylinder passed from runner to runner in a relay race
• noun a thin tapered rod used by a conductor to lead an orchestra or choir