battery: [16] The original meaning of battery in English was literally ‘hitting’, as in assault and battery. It came from Old French batterie, a derivative of batre, battre ‘beat’ (from which English also gets batter [14]). The ultimate source of this, and of English battle, was Latin battuere ‘beat’. The development of the word’s modern diversity of senses was via ‘bombardment by artillery’, to ‘unit of artillery’, to ‘electric cell’: it seems that this last meaning was inspired by the notion of ‘discharge of electricity’ rather than ‘connected series of cells’. => batter, battle
battery (n.)
1530s, "action of battering," from Middle French batterie, from Old French baterie (12c.) "beating, thrashing, assault," from batre "beat," from Latin battuere "beat" (see batter (v.)).
Meaning shifted in Middle French from "bombardment" ("heavy blows" upon city walls or fortresses) to "unit of artillery" (a sense recorded in English from 1550s). Extension to "electrical cell" (1748, first used by Ben Franklin) is perhaps from the artillery sense via notion of "discharges" of electricity. In Middle English, bateri meant only "forged metal ware." In obsolete baseball jargon battery was the word for "pitcher and catcher" considered as a unit (1867, originally only the pitcher).
雙語例句
1. The battery in my car gave up the ghost.
我的汽車電池報廢了。
來自柯林斯例句
2. He is using your mains electricity to recharge his car battery.
他在用你家裏的電源給他的車載蓄電池充電。
來自柯林斯例句
3. Crack is part of a battery of drugs used by addicts.
強效可卡因是癮君子們吸食的眾多毒品之一。
來自柯林斯例句
4. We give a battery of tests to each patient.
我們給每個病人都做了一係列的檢查。
來自柯林斯例句
5. I thought it looked as though the battery was going.