From French batterie (a beating, a group of artillery pieces), from battre (to beat, to strike), from Latin battuere (to beat, to strike, to pound), probably from Gaulish or Celtic *battu- (to strike), possibly from PIE *bhat- (to strike, to beat). The semantic evolution of battery is remarkably layered. In Old French, batterie meant the act of beating or striking. By the 16th century, it denoted a group of cannonsdeployed together (a battery of guns
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Benjamin Franklin named the electrical battery after a battery of cannons. He lined up multiple Leyden jars in a row like artillery and called them a 'battery' because they discharged together — and the same beating root 'battuere' gave us 'battle,' 'combat,' 'debate,' and even the baseball 'bat.'
. The culinary term batterie de cuisine (a set of kitchen implements) extends the military metaphor of assembled equipment. Latin battuere itself is thought to be a Gaulish loanword — one of the few Celtic contributions to Latin — from a root meaning to strike or fight, cognate with Irish and Welsh words for beating. English bat (the implement for striking a ball) descends from the same root through Old English and Old French. Key roots: battuere (Latin: "to beat, to strike").