embattle

present singular third person embattles · participle present embattling · participle past embattled · past embattled

1. transitiveTo arrange in order of battle; to array for battle.
2. To prepare or arm for battle; to equip as for battle.

   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 ?

   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

   Synonyms: fortify

3. intransitiveTo be arrayed for battle.

present singular third person embattles · participle present embattling · participle past embattled · past embattled

1. transitiveTo furnish with battlements; to give the form of battlements to.

   to embattle a wall

plural embattles

1. governmentA merlon, or a single one of the series of solid projections of a battlement.

   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 [...]

   1996, Anthony Wood, Heraldic Art and Design, page 53