Arch. [Of doubtful origin: hardly connected with preceding; can it be related to F. abattre to beat down, throw down?]
1. intr. Of walls, etc.: To incline from the perpendicular, so as to have a receding slope.
1546. Langley, Pol. Verg. De Invent., III. x. 77 a. Dædalus … first inuented the plomline, whereby the Euenes of the Squares bee tried whether they batter or hang ouer.
1677. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), 157. The side … of a Wall … that bulges from its bottom or Foundation, is said to Batter, or hang over the Foundation.
1793. Rennie, in Smiles, Engineers, II. 208. Made five feet thick at the base next to the bridge, and four feet thick at the top, battering one-fifth of their height in a curvilinear form.
1845. Gloss. Gothic Archit., I. 48. Wharf walls, and walls built to support embankments and fortifications, generally batter.
2. trans. ‘To give (a wall) in building it, an inclination inwards.’ Jamieson.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XV. xxii. (1495), 497. A toure in Babilon … whyche conteynyth at heyghte two lewges batryd in brede. [The sense is here doubtful].
