battled

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of battle.

   Firefighters battled the blaze through the night without rest.

   He had battled his rivals for control of the company for years.

   Note

   One regular form does double duty: they battled the blaze, and they had battled it all night. The verb works with an object (battled his rivals) and without one (the two armies battled for days). In Northern England and Scotland the same spelling can also belong to a dialect verb meaning to feed someone or to make land fertile, so a battled field there may be a well-nourished one.

2. 2
   adjective

   Beset by attack, difficulty, or conflict coming from many sides at once.

   The battled government clung to power amid mounting protests.

   Reporters described the senator as battled but unbowed after the scandal broke.

   Similarembattled, beleaguered

   Note

   In heraldry the word is about outline, not siege. An ordinary such as the fess is battled when its edge is cut in the stepped shape of battlements. William Berry's Encyclopaedia Heraldica (1828) treats battled and embattled as the same term and adds a double form, with one battlement set upon another. Keep this sense apart from the figurative embattled of politics, because on a shield nothing is under attack.

3. 3
   adjectivearchaic

   Having battlements: the toothed parapet of alternating high and low sections found along the top of castle walls.

   The battled ramparts of the ancient fortress drew crowds of painters every summer.

   Moonlight outlined the battled silhouette of the castle keep.

   Note

   A word for verse and deliberately old-fashioned description. In ordinary modern prose, battlemented says the same thing without sounding antique. It is not comparable: a tower is battled or it is not, never more battled than its neighbor. Used today it also risks a misreading, since battled towers can sound like towers that fought, as with the verb of fighting. Context of walls and rooftops keeps it clear.

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