English

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Late Latin battālia, variant of battuālia (military exercises), from Latin battuō (to strike, beat), from Gaulish. Doublet of battle.

Noun

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battalia (countable and uncountable, plural battalias)

  1. (obsolete, uncountable) Order of battle; disposition or arrangement of troops or of a naval force, ready for action.
    • 1651, Jeremy Taylor, “Sermon VI”, in The Sermons of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor[1], Philadelphia: H. Hooker, published 1845, pages 456–457:
      [] but we find, by a sad experience, that few questions are well stated; and when they are, they are not consented to; and when they are agreed on by both sides that they are well stated, it is nothing else but a drawing up the armies in battalia with great skill and discipline; the next thing they do is, they thrust their swords into one another's sides.
    • 1695, William Congreve, “To the King on the taking of Namur”, in A Complete Edition of the British Poets[2], volume 7, London: John & Arthur Arch, published 1795, stanza IV, page 537:
      Two rival armies all the plain o'erspread, / Each in battalia rang'd, and shining arms array'd
  2. (obsolete, countable) An army in battle array; also, the main battalia or body of the army, as distinct from the vanguard and rear.

See also

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Latin

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Noun

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battālia f or n pl (Late Latin)

  1. Alternative form of battuālia
    • c. 580 CE, Cassiodorus, De Orthographia 7.178.4:
      Bat in uno tantum repperi nomine generis neutri pluraliter enuntiatio, id est battualia, quae vulgo battalia dicuntur (var. quod vulgo battalia dicitur), quae b mutam habere cognovimus.

Declension

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Only attested in the nominative, either as a feminine singular or neuter plural, depending on the reading. See the quotation above.

Descendants

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See battuālia.

References

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