Other forms: battles
A battle is a fight between armies, or a hard struggle. Win the battle, a legal battle, battle against illness.
A battle is one engagement and a war is the whole thing, which is the distinction behind losing the battle but winning the war. The figurative use is very common and mostly harmless, though the language of battling an illness is criticised for implying that people who die did not fight hard enough.
1nounbattleA fight between armies.
“Thousands of soldiers died in the battle.”
2nounhardA hard struggle.
“The family faced a long battle to get the council to fix their house.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
battle is a fight.
Old French bataille comes from Latin battuere, to strike or fence. Batter, combat and debate come from the same striking.
Latin
battālia
Old French
bataille
Middle English
batel
English, today
battle
Built from
From Middle English batel, batell, batelle, batayle, bataylle, borrowed from Old French bataille, from Latin battālia, variant of battuālia (“fighting and fencing exercises”) from Latin battuō (“to strike, hit, beat, fight”), of unknown origin. Possibly from a cel-gau - or Proto-Germanic - root from Proto-Indo-European bʰedʰ- (“to stab, dig”), related to Old English beado (“battle”); or possibly from a Proto-Indo-European bʰew- (“to hit, strike, beat”). a doublet of battalia and battel. Displaced native Old English ġefeoht, beadu, camp, and wīg (“battle”), among others.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA