Meanings
comparative more batrachomyomachian · superlative most batrachomyomachian
- rarePetty (chiefly of a quarrel).
...sounded throughout to my own ears as a Batrachomyomachian battle between the croaks and the squeaks...
1933, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Earl Leslie Griggs, Philip Hamilton McMillan, Unpublished Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge1 more example
The batrachomyomachian cure for the superhuman ego is to chop it off at the knees and cut it down to a human, preferably humane, level.
1971, Edwin Harrison Cady, The Light of Common Day: Realism in American Fiction
Origin
From Batrachomyomachia (Ancient Greek βάτραχος, frog, μῦς, mouse, and μάχη, battle), a comic epic parodying the Iliad in which a diving frog accidentally drowns a mouse riding on his back, prompting a war between the species.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Czech žabomyší
- žabomyšípetty
Cite this entry
batrachomyomachian. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/batrachomyomachian
“batrachomyomachian.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/batrachomyomachian. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “batrachomyomachian,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/batrachomyomachian.
Source: batrachomyomachian on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.