battalia

Borrowed from Late Latin battālia, variant of battuālia (“military exercises”), from Latin battuō (“to strike, beat”), from Gaulish. Doublet of battle.

battalia (countable and uncountable, plural battalias)

1. (obsolete, uncountable) Order of battle; disposition or arrangement of troops or of a naval force, ready for action.
   • 1651, Jeremy Taylor, “Sermon VI”, in The Sermons of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor‎, Philadelphia: H. Hooker, published 1845, pages 456–457:

     […] but we find, by a sad experience, that few questions are well stated; and when they are, they are not consented to; and when they are agreed on by both sides that they are well stated, it is nothing else but a drawing up the armies in battalia with great skill and discipline; the next thing they do is, they thrust their swords into one another's sides.

   • 1695, William Congreve, “To the King on the taking of Namur”, in A Complete Edition of the British Poets‎, volume 7, London: John & Arthur Arch, published 1795, stanza IV, page 537:

     Two rival armies all the plain o'erspread, / Each in battalia rang'd, and shining arms array'd

2. (obsolete, countable) An army in battle array; also, the main battalia or body of the army, as distinct from the vanguard and rear.
   • c. 1592, William Shakespeare, Richard III, act 5, scene 3, line 11:

     Why, our battalia trebles that account

• battalia pie

battālia f or n pl (Late Latin)

1. Alternative form of battuālia
   • c. 580 CE, Cassiodorus, De Orthographia 7.178.4:

     Bat in uno tantum repperi nomine generis neutri pluraliter enuntiatio, id est battualia, quae vulgo battalia dicuntur (var. quod vulgo battalia dicitur), quae b mutam habere cognovimus.

Only attested in the nominative, either as a feminine singular or neuter plural, depending on the reading. See the quotation above.

See battuālia.

• “battuālia” in volume 2, column 1788, line 75 in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL Open Access), Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner), 1900–present