battalion

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French bataillon,^[2][3][4][5] from Italian battaglione (“battle squadron”),^[2][6][3] formed on battaglia (“battle; company of soldiers”) with the augmentative suffix;^[7][3][5] the OED calls the suffix augmentative or diminutive.^[4] The Italian noun comes from Late Latin battālia (Vulgar Latin, according to the American Heritage Dictionary), from battuō (“to beat”), the source of battle and batter.^[2][7][6] In English the word took over from battle in its old sense "a company of troops", recorded from about 1225.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A large body of soldiers in battle array, one of the main divisions of an army: 1589, in P. Ive's translation of R. Beccarie de Pavie.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

The figurative use, a large array or host, appears from 1603, in Florio's translation of Montaigne,^[4] and Johnson (1755) quoted Hamlet: "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions".^[8] Johnson defined the word as a division of an army, adding that it was by then confined to the infantry and usually numbered five to eight hundred men.^[8] The specific sense, a body of infantry made up of several companies and forming part of a regiment, is recorded from 1708,^[4][6] while the sense "main body of an army" lasted only from 1653 to 1656.^[4] A verb, to form into a battalion, appears in 1865 but stayed rare.^[4][9]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – bataille, a company of troops, the earlier word it replaced.^[2]
• 1589 – a large body of troops in battle array.^[4][2]
• 1603 – figurative, a large group.^[4]
• 1653 – the main body of an army (until 1656).^[4]
• 1708 – a unit of infantry forming part of a regiment.^[4][6]
• 1842 – the saying about God and the big battalions in English.^[4]
• 1865 – the verb, to form into a battalion.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A military unit made up of a headquarters and two or more companies or similar units, usually forming part of a brigade or regiment.
2. A large body of troops organized to act together; an army.
3. A large number of people or things, often with a common purpose: Battalions of volunteers cleared the beach.

Verb

1. (rare) To form into a battalion or battalions.

Related words

• battle
• batter
• battalia
• battery
• combat

Usage notes

The saying "God is on the side of the big battalions", in many variants, is usually credited to the 17th-century French marshal Turenne,^[6] and Etymonline quotes it from Boursault (1702).^[6] The OED records English allusions to it from 1842.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press