battlement

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English batelment, also batilment and batailment,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman bataillement (“battlement, defensive parapet”), recorded in Anglo-Norman from 1374.^[5] The OED, which writes the French form as an unrecorded Old French *bataillement, derives it from bataillier (“to furnish with movable turrets of defence”),^[4] as do Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English.^[6][7][8] The OED calls that verb formally the same word as bataille (“battle”), though it finds the development of the sense unclear;^[4] Weekley also considered it.^[9] Other dictionaries start from the later batillement, earlier bastillement (“fortification”), from bastillier (“to fortify”), from bastille (“fortress, tower”),^[10][3][2] and the American Heritage Dictionary sees the English form as altered under the influence of batel (“battle”).^[11] Merriam-Webster Unabridged derives it from Middle French bataille (“fortifying tower”) with the suffix -ment.^[12] Skeat thought that the verb had been confused with a similar French one for fortifying, a derivative of the verb for building,^[13] and Johnson reported the common view that it came from battle, adding that it was perhaps a corruption of French bâtiment.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

An indented parapet: about 1400 (composed perhaps about 1380), in Cleanness, in a passage on covered cups arrayed like castles, "Enbaned under batelment wyth bantelles quoynt".^[4][2] Barnhart dates the word probably to about 1380,^[3] Etymonline to the early 14th century,^[10] and Dictionary.com to 1275–1325.^[15]

Semantic evolution

The word was used from the start of the fortified parapet and of its likeness on other things: the Middle English Dictionary records the defensive wall of a city or castle, a decorative parapet on a church or tower, and an indented design on a vessel,^[2] and in Anglo-Norman it also named a crenellated rim to a vessel.^[5] The OED has such a brim on cups in 1444.^[4] The parapet was at first purely for defence and later became an architectural ornament.^[4][12] Shakespeare, in King John, used the word loosely for an embattled roof,^[4][7] and Milton, in Paradise Lost (1667), for the summits of the heavens and mountains.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined a wall round the top of a building with gaps to look through and to annoy an enemy, and quoted Deuteronomy, "Thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof", as well as a figurative "battlements of state" from Norris.^[14] The verb, to furnish with battlements, is recorded in 1603, in Florio's Montaigne.^[4] In south Lancashire dialect a battlement was a hard struggle, a use since lost.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – an indented parapet.^[4][2]
• 1444 – a crenellated brim on cups.^[4]
• 1603 – verb, to furnish with battlements.^[4]
• before 1616 – loosely, an embattled roof.^[4]
• 1667 – figurative, the towering summits of mountains or the roof of the heavens.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A parapet with alternating solid parts and open spaces along the top of a wall, used in fortified buildings for defence and on others for decoration; the raised parts are merlons and the gaps embrasures or crenels: Archers lined the castle's battlements.^[12][17][10]
2. An embattled roof or platform.^[12][7]
3. Something high and towering compared to such a wall, as the summits of mountains.^[4][14]

Verb

1. To furnish or decorate with battlements.^[4]

Word family

• battlemented

Related words

• battle
• embattle
• bastille
• bastion

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins