embattle

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɛmˈbæ.təl/, /ɪmˈbæ.təl/
• (regional US) IPA^(key): [əmˈbæ.ɾəl]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɛmˈbæt.əl/, /ɪmˈbæt.əl/

Etymology 1

From Middle English enbatelen, embatailen, from Old French embataillier (“to array for battle”), from em- (Latin in) + bataille (“battle”).

Verb

embattle (third-person singular simple present embattles, present participle embattling, simple past and past participle embattled)

1. (transitive) To arrange in order of battle; to array for battle.
2. To prepare or arm for battle; to equip as for battle.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter XXV, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 124:

     In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell eloquently upon his cause — such an advocate, would he not be blameworthy ?

3. (intransitive) To be arrayed for battle.

Synonyms

• (to prepare or arm for battle; to equip as for battle): fortify

Derived terms

• embattled

Etymology 2

From Middle English enbatelen, enbatailen, from Old French *embastiller ("to fortify"; > Middle Latin imbataliare, imbattajare), from en- +‎ + bastiller (“to build, fortify, embattle”). More at baste.

Verb

embattle (third-person singular simple present embattles, present participle embattling, simple past and past participle embattled)

1. (transitive) To furnish with battlements; to give the form of battlements to.

   to embattle a wall

Derived terms

• embattled

Noun

embattle (plural embattles)

1. (heraldry) A merlon, or a single one of the series of solid projections of a battlement.
   • 1996, Anthony Wood, Heraldic Art and Design, page 53:

     Again, it can be drawn with the angle of the limbs being greater or less than a right angle, but they will appear to conflict with the embattles which have to be rectangular. In some ordinaries such as the fess, there must be an odd number of embattles, otherwise it will start high and end low [...]

Further reading

• “embattle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.