Mil. [a. F. contre-batterie: cf. COUNTER- 2, 3, 11.]
† 1. A counter-attack with artillery. Obs.
1592. Unton, Corr. (Roxb.), 429. With some few peces of artillerie making counter battery.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. I. 123. And wee made a counterbattery against our enemies for ten dayes space.
1651. Howell, Venice, 103. The besieged did … make so furious a counter-Battery, as [etc.].
1670. Cotton, Espernon, I. iv. 156. The besieg’d, ingenious in their Revenge, contriv’d a way to pay him back some of his Balls by a Counter-battery.
b. fig.
1594. 2nd Rep. Dr. Faustus, in Thoms, Prose Rom. (1858), III. 356. Faustus had begun to prepare for the counterbattery, determining to throw down upon the assemblies heads, so many heavy charms and conjurations that they should fall down.
2. A battery raised against another. Also fig.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, I. xx. (1632), 41. Provided with a counterbattery of forcible enchantments.
1667. Lond. Gaz., No. 170/2. They raised a battery of five great guns against the Town, which were dismounted by a Counterbattery of seven guns.
1838. Penny Cycl., X. 375/1. That the guns … might be … concealed from the view of the enemy in his counter-battery.
† 3. [COUNTER- 11.] A battering of each other.
1643. Herle, Answ. Ferne, 48. He would never have begun this unhappy counterbattery of inke.
