battery
UK /ˈbæt.(ə)ɹi/ · US /ˈbæt.əɹi/ noun, proper noun
Forms batteries the Battery
- noun (electricity, electronics, countable) A device used to power electric devices, consisting of one or more electrically connected electrochemical cells or (archaically) electrostatic cells. “alkaline battery”
- noun (originally and sometimes still, strictly) Such a device that has multiple cells. “Her phone needs a new battery because its present battery no longer holds a charge well.”
- noun (metonymic, informal, uncountable) The energy stored in such a device. “Her phone did not have enough battery for another phone call.”
- noun (law) The infliction of unlawful physical violence on a person, legally distinguished from assault, which involves the threat of impending violence.
- noun (military, countable, collective) A coordinated group of artillery weapons, with any of various numbers of guns. “Outside the ancient fort, you can still see worn areas in the stone where the batteries were once placed.”
- noun Such a group of a certain size (number of guns and artillerists), within a schema of military unit organization. “They sent four batteries southward in an attempt to shore up the defenses around the depot.”
- noun (historical, archaic) An elevated platform on which cannon could be placed.
- noun An array of similar things. “Schoolchildren take a battery of standard tests to measure their progress.”
- proper noun A park in Manhattan, New York City.
Synonyms
electric battery stamp battery barrage barrage fire bombardment shelling assault and battery
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French batterie, from Old French baterie (“action of beating”), from batre (“beat”), from Latin battuō (“beat”), from Gaulish. Doublet of batterie. By surface analysis, batter + -y.
The electrical sense was coined by American polymath Benjamin Franklin by analogy with a military battery that his series of Leyden jars resembled.
Named for a coastal artillery battery that once stood there.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The act of battering or beating.
- noun The unlawful beating of another. It includes every willful, angry and violent, or negligent touching of another's person or clothes, or anything attached to his person or held by him.
Etymology [F. batterie, fr. battre. See Batter, v. t.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “battery”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details