Where does “battle” come from?
Battle comes from Old French bataille, derived from Old French -ier and Latin -are, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European bʰew-.
battle (English): A contest, a struggle; A general action, fight,...
Definitions
- A contest, a struggle; A general action, fight,...
Ancestry of “battle”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | Middle English | batel | Alternative form of batayle; flourishing |
| 2 | Old English | batol | improving, tending to be good |
| 3 | Old English | batian | to fatten, to get fatter; to improve, to get... |
| 4 | Old English | -ol | Used to form suffixes denoting inclination or... |
| 5 | Proto-Germanic | -ulaz | Forms adjectives from verbs meaning "doing" or... |
Words derived from “battle”