battery

battery · noun¹

1. Latin · derived frombattuō“beat”
2. Old French · derived frombaterie“action of beating”
3. Middle French · borrowed frombatterie
4. English todaybattery

Borrowed from Middle French batterie, from Old French baterie (“action of beating”), from batre (“beat”), from Latin battuō (“beat”), from Gaulish. Doublet of batterie. By surface analysis, batter + -y. The electrical sense was coined by American polymath Benjamin Franklin by analogy with a military battery that his series of Leyden jars resembled.

Battery · proper noun²

Named for a coastal artillery battery that once stood there.

Words from the same roots