Definition of "bating"

[A]nd bating a little wilfulness, and a little selfishness, and a little dandification, I don’t know a more honest, or loyal, or gentle creature.

1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 54, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850

‘The laws of religious society, bating those which are only subservient to the order necessary to their execution, are immutable, not subject to any authority of the society, but only proposed by and within the society, but made by a lawgiver without the society, and paramount to it.’

1673-4, John Locke, On the Difference between Civil and Ecclesiastical Power, Indorsed Excommunication

I replied, That he was a very unworthy man, if it were true, to speak slightingly of a family, which was as good as his own, bating that it was not allied to the peerage […].

1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter LXXIX”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; […]

‘There is but little I have heard from you which I did not expect to hear, and which I ought not to have expected; because, bating one circumstance, it is all very true.’

1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], Rob Roy. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown