Etymologically
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battery

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 16 October 2026 at 00:04. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈbæt.ər.i/, US /ˈbæt̬.ɚ.i/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French batterie (“a beating; a group of cannon”),[2][3] from Old French baterie (“beating, assault”), from batre “to beat”,[3][2] from Late Latin battere, Latin battuere “to beat, strike”.[2][3] In Middle English bateri meant only metal goods shaped by hammering.[3][4] It is related to batter, battle and bat.[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The act of beating, in law an unlawful attack on another person: 1531 in the OED and Barnhart,[6][2] the 1530s in Etymonline.[3] MWU gives about 1503.[7]

Semantic evolution

The army took it for a series of heavy blows on the walls of a fortress (1548), and then for a group of artillery pieces used together (1555).[2][6] Word Origins traces the electrical sense to this idea of combining to produce a result,[8] while Etymonline suggests it came through the notion of discharges.[3] Benjamin Franklin used it in 1748 for a set of Leyden jars storing electricity,[2][8] and in 1801 Humphry Davy used it for cells producing electricity.[2] In 19th-century baseball the pitcher and catcher were the battery (1867).[3] A set of similar things, as in a battery of tests, and the percussion section of an orchestra (1926) are later.[9][2] A battery of cages for hens is from the 20th century.[10]

Timeline

  • 1531 – beating; assault in law.[6][2]
  • 1548 – bombardment.[2]
  • 1555 – a group of guns.[2][6]
  • 1748 – a set of electrical jars.[2]
  • 1801 – an electric cell.[2]
  • 1867 – in baseball, the pitcher and catcher.[3]
  • 1926 – the percussion of an orchestra.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A device of one or more cells that produces electricity by chemical reaction.
  2. A group of large guns, or the soldiers who fire them.
  3. A large group or series of similar things: a battery of tests.
  4. (law) The crime of hitting or touching someone with intent to harm, as in assault and battery.
  5. (chiefly British) A row of small cages for keeping hens.

Word family

  • assault and battery
  • battery eliminator

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins