Forms: 6 batterye, battrie, -tre(e, batery, 6–7 battry(e, -erie, 6– battery. [a. F. batterie (13th c.) ‘beating, battering, a group of cannon’, etc. (= Pr. bataria, Sp. batería, It. battería), f. battre to beat: see -ERY.]
1. The action of beating or battering.
1. An assailing with blows: spec. in Law, an unlawful attack upon another by beating or wounding, including technically the slightest touching of another’s person or clothes in a menacing manner.
1531. Elyot, Gov., III. i. (1557), 142. Intermedlynge sometyme is vyolent as batrye, open murder.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., IV. i. 36. Ile haue an action of Battery against him.
1752. Fielding, Amelia, I. ii. Wks. 1784, VIII. 160. Charged with a battery by a much stouter man than himself.
1868. G. Duff, Pol. Surv., 127. Murder, to say nothing of assault and battery, has been … an everyday matter.
† b. A mark of beating; a wound or bruise. Obs.
1592. Shaks., Ven. & Ad., 426. For where a heart is hard they make no battery.
1639. City-Match, I. iv. in Hazl., Dodsl., XIII. 218. Lets feel: No batteries in thy head, to signify Th’ art a constable.
† 2. The beating of drums; sometimes a particular kind of drum-beat, perhaps that giving the signal for an assault. Obs.
1591. Garrard, Art Warre, 118. The most fit and apt time … ought to be shewed by … stroke or batterie of drums to the footemen.
1625. Markham, Souldiers Accid. The Drum doth beat … a call, a march, a troope, a battalia, a charge, a retrait, a batterie, a reliefe.
† 3. A succession of heavy blows inflicted upon the walls of a city or fortress by means of artillery; bombardment. To plant battery: to prepare for such an attack. To lay battery to: to carry it into execution. To change one’s battery: to change the direction of attack. Obs. exc. fig.
1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., an. 13 (R.). The battery of the walles discorages vs not.
1587. Turberv., Trag. T. (1837), 47. Planting battrie to my fort.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turkes (1638), 304. He laid battery to the wal four daies.
1667. Milton, P. L., XI. 656. By Batterie, Scale, and Mine, Assaulting.
1732. Lediard, Sethos, II. IX. 275. The most violent battery would have weaken’d their walls.
b. transf. or fig.
1562. Veron (title), A Strong Battery against the Idolatrous Inuocation of the Dead Saintes.
1640. Ld. Digby, Parl. Sp., 9 Nov., 4. Mischiefs which have … layed battery either to our Estates or Consciences.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., I. § 6. The scaling of the swelling Surges, and constant Battery of the Tide.
1865. Grote, Plato, I. xix. 559. Plato … changes his battery, and says something against these enemies.
† c. Battery piece or piece of battery: a siege gun.
1570. Sir R. Constable, in Lodge, Illustr. Brit. Hist. (1838), I. 509. With three battery pieces … went to the siege of Hume.
1648. Petit. Eastern Ass., 18. Was it ill done to fill the Tower with … great pieces of battery?
II. The apparatus used in battering or beating.
4. A number of pieces of artillery placed in juxtaposition for combined action; in Military use, the smallest division of artillery for tactical purposes (corresponding to a company of infantry).
Technically, including also the artillerymen who work the guns, the drivers, and horses. In Horse batteries, the gunners are carried partly on the carriages and partly on horses, in Field batteries wholly on the carriages; Garrison batteries are bodies of artillerymen serving heavy guns in forts or coast batteries.
1555. Fardle Facions, II. xi. 246. To plante bateries, make Ladders, and suche other thinges necessarie for the siege.
1732. Lediard, Sethos, II. VIII. 163. He will begin to work his batteries.
1803. Wellington, in Gurw., Disp., II. 286. You will have a breaching battery of two 18 pounders and one 12 pounder.
1861. Man. Artill. Exerc., 102. The centre battery halts when the rear battery wheels to the left.
b. fig., esp. in phr. To turn any one’s battery against himself.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 82 b. Three wordes onely may suffice to overthrow the whole Battrye of these three Invectives.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl. (1815), 183. The fellow who accused him has had his own battery turned upon himself.
1823. Lamb, Elia, Ser. I. xxvii. (1865), 231. You think he has exhausted his battery of looks.
5. The platform or fortified work, on or within which artillery is mounted (sometimes including the guns or mortars there mounted).
1590. Marlowe, 2nd Pt. Tamburl., III. iii. The bringing of our ordnance … into the battery.
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2378/3. We had finished a Battery of three Mortars.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), H h 2 b. Those on the lower battery are 32 pounders.
1810. Wellington, in Gurw., Disp., VI. 346. The batteries and works erecting at Cadiz.
1836. Marryat, Midsh. Easy, xxx. She continued her destructive fire … from the main-deck battery.
b. transf. or fig.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor. Before you had raysed your Battrye agaynst Luther.
1684. T. Burnet, Th. Earth, 89. These [burning] mountains are as so many batteries, planted by Providence in several parts of the earth.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., iv. 111. The Towers and Batteries that the Atheists have raised against Heaven.
6. Phrases and locutions. Battery-wagon: one in which are carried tools and materials for repair of the battery. Cross batteries: two batteries playing upon the same point from different directions. Enfilading battery: one which sweeps the whole line attacked. Floating battery: a heavily armed and armored vessel intended for bombarding fortresses. In battery: (a gun) projecting in readiness for firing through an embrasure or over a parapet. Masked battery: one screened from the enemy’s view by natural or artificial obstacles. Out of or from battery: (a gun) withdrawn for the purpose of loading.
1813. Wellington, in Gurw., Disp., X. 487. On what days did you disembark the artillery?… On what days did you put them in battery?
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. V. I. 57. Wondrous leather-roofed Floating-batteries … give gallant summons; to which … Gibraltar answers Plutonically.
1861. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., III. clxxvii. 214. Do not go probing for ‘masked batteries’ to run your heads against.
7. Mining. The set of stamps, usually five in number, that work in one ‘mortar’ of a stamp-mill.
1881. S. Jennings, Visit Goldfields Wynaad, viii. 69. The crushing machinery … consists of eight batteries, of five gravitation stamps each.
1884. Constance F. Gordon-Cumming, in Century Mag., XXVII. 923/1. The huge batteries, where the quartz is pounded into white mud, through which quicksilver is run to amalgamate the gold.
8. Dyeing. (See quot.)
1737. Miller, Gard. Dict., s.v. Anil, The second [vat] is called the Battery … It is in the second that they agitate and beat this Water impregnated and loaded with the Salts of the plant [Indigo].
1815. Encycl. Brit., X. 287/2. A battery, consisting of a kettle, containing water slightly acidulated with sulphuric acid.
III. (from 4) A combination of simple instruments, usually to produce a compound instrument of increased power; applied originally with a reference to the discharge of electricity from such a combination.
9. Electr. An apparatus consisting of a number of Leyden jars so connected that they may be charged and discharged simultaneously.
1748. Franklin, Lett., Wks. 1840, V. 202. An electrical battery, consisting of eleven panes of large sash-glass, armed with thin leaden plates.
1822. Imison, Sc. & Art, I. 340. When a number of Jars are thus connected it is called a battery.
fig. 1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., III. 339. Till your whole vital Electricity … is cut into two isolated portions of Positive and Negative (of Money and of Hunger); and stands there bottled up in two World-Batteries!
10. Galvanism. An apparatus consisting of a series of cells, each containing the essentials for producing voltaic electricity, connected together. Also used of any such apparatus for producing voltaic electricity, whether of one cell or more.
1801. Sir H. Davy, in Phil. Trans., XCI. 400. The third and most powerful class of Galvanic batteries … is formed, when metallic substances, oxidable in acids … are connected, as plates, with oxidating fluids. Ibid. (1812), Chem. Philos., 162. Zinc, copper, and nitric acid form a powerful battery.
c. 1865. J. Wylde, in Circ. Sc., I. 190/1. No arrangement equals Grove’s platina battery.
11. Optics. A combined series of lenses or prisms.
1867–77. Chambers, Astron., An eye-piece … intermediate between the 1st and 2nd of the ‘battery.’
1879. Warren, Astron., iii. 49. The best instruments pass the beam of light through a series of prisms called a battery.
12. Apparatus for preparing or serving meals. [= F. batterie de cuisine; perhaps from next sense.]
1819. Rees, Cycl., s.v. Battery, Some make battery for the kitchen, batterie de cuisine, comprehend all utensils for the service of the kitchen, whether of iron, brass, copper, or other matters.
1883. G. Boughton, in Harper’s Mag., April, 695/1. Our tea battery came in. Ibid. (1884), ibid., Aug., 334/2. The feasting batteries of the … guilds.
IV. 13. Metal, or articles of metal, especially of brass or copper, wrought by hammering.
1502. Arnold, Chron. (1811), 74. Batery for the bale, xijd.
1577. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1860), 414. ij panes of battrye weyinge xvlb.
1742. H. Hines, Specif. Patent, No. 462. Raising copper battery cold in common battery mills.
1812. J. Smyth, Pract. Customs, 107. Black Latten … and Battery … This last is known by the dint of the mill-hammers upon the kettles.
attrib. 1592. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1860), 252. Kettell of battre mettell.
1802. Rees, Cycl., s.v., Battery-works include pots, saucepans, kettles … which though cast at first, are to be afterwards hammered or beaten into form.
1885. Birmhm. Directory. The Birmingham Battery and Metal Company.
V. [Cf. OF. baterie ‘sorte de rempart’ (Godefroy); ? an extension of 5; or can it be related to BATTER v.2?]
14. An embankment.
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth., 276. A battery of stone, to join another island to the main land.
1862. Smiles, Engineers, III. 156. The expense of cuts and batteries (since called cuttings and embankments) on the different … lines.
15. Mining. a. A bulkhead of timber. b. The plank closing the bottom of a coal-chute. Raymond, Mining Gloss., 1881.
