different between battle vs cenotaph

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?bæt?l/, [?bat???]
• (US) enPR: b?t'l, IPA^(key): /?bætl?/, [?bæ???], [bæt??]
• Rhymes: -æt?l
• Hyphenation: bat?tle

Etymology 1

From Middle English batel, batell, batelle, batayle, bataylle, borrowed from Old French bataille, from Late Latin batt?lia, variant of battu?lia (“fighting and fencing exercises”) from Latin battu? (“to strike, hit, beat, fight”), from a Gaulish root from Proto-Indo-European *b?ed?- (“to stab, dig”). Doublet of battalia and battel.

Displaced native Old English ?efeoht.

Alternative forms

• batail, battel, battell (14th–17th centuries)

Noun

battle (plural battles)

1. A contest, a struggle.
   • 1611, Bible (KJV), Ecclesiastes, 9:11:
2. (military) A general action, fight, or encounter, in which all the divisions of an army are or may be engaged; a combat, an engagement.
3. (military, now rare) A division of an army; a battalion.
4. (military, obsolete) The main body of an army, as distinct from the vanguard and rear; the battalia.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Hayward to this entry?)

Derived terms

Related terms

• battlement

Translations

Verb

battle (third-person singular simple present battles, present participle battling, simple past and past participle battled)

1. (intransitive) To join in battle; to contend in fight

   Scientists always battle over theories.

   She has been battling against cancer for years.

2. (transitive) To fight or struggle; to enter into a battle with.

   She has been battling cancer for years.

Derived terms

• battle it out

Related terms

• embattle

Translations

Etymology 2

From Early Modern English batell, probably from Middle English *batel (“flourishing”), from Old English *batol (“improving, tending to be good”), from batian (“to get better, improve”) + -ol ( +? -le).

Alternative forms

• battil, battill, battel, baittle, bettle, batwell

Adjective

battle (comparative more battle, superlative most battle)

1. (Britain dialectal, chiefly Scotland, Northern England, agriculture) Improving; nutritious; fattening.

   battle grass, battle pasture

2. (Britain dialectal, chiefly Scotland, Northern England) Fertile; fruitful.

   battle soil, battle land

Derived terms

• overbattle

Verb

battle (third-person singular simple present battles, present participle battling, simple past and past participle battled)

1. (transitive, Britain dialectal, chiefly Scotland, Northern England) To nourish; feed.
2. (transitive, Britain dialectal, chiefly Scotland, Northern England) To render (for example soil) fertile or fruitful

Related terms

• batful
• batten

Further reading

• battle in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• battle in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “battle”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• batlet, battel, tablet

English

Etymology

From French cénotaphe, from Ancient Greek ????? (kenós, “empty”) + ????? (táphos, “tomb”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?s?n.??.tæf/, /?s?n.??.t??f/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?s?n.?.tæf/

Noun

cenotaph (plural cenotaphs)

1. A monument, especially in the form of an empty tomb, erected to honour the dead whose bodies lie elsewhere; especially members of the armed forces who died in battle.

   A cenotaph was erected for him in Gaul, while his body was taken to Rome and inclosed in a magnificent tomb.

   • 1826, Mary Shelley, The Last Man, part 2, chapter 1

     […] tombs and cenotaphs were strewed thick around adorned by every renewing vegetation; […]

   • 1967, Ambrose Bierce (ed E. J. Hopkins) The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary

     Cenotaph, n. A tomb from which the body is absent, living elsewhere. The grave whose headstone bore the famous inscription,
         Here lies me two children dear
         One in ould Ireland, t'other one here.
     was a cenotaph, so far as regarded the "One in ould Ireland".

   • 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Cloud

        I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
        And the nursling of the Sky;
        I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
        I change, but I cannot die.
        For after the rain when with never a stain
        The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
        And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
        Build up the blue dome of air,
        I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
        And out of the caverns of rain,
        Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
        I arise and unbuild it again.

Translations