[f. BATTERING vbl. sb. + RAM. Cf. L. aries ram, battering-ram.]
1. An ancient military engine employed for battering down walls, consisting of a beam of wood, with a mass of iron at one end, sometimes in the form of a ram’s head; (also fig.).
1611. Bible, Ezek. iv. 2. Set battering rams against it round about [cf. Coverdale Ezek. xxi. 22 Batell-rammes].
1776. Gibbon, Decl. & F., I. xiv. 330. The battering-rams had shaken the walls in several places.
1792. Nat. Gaz., 11 Aug., 3/4.
| The mighty TIPPOO, from a battering-ram, | |
| Got a shot in the thigh at Seringapatam. |
1818. Bentham, Ch. Eng., 55. In the hands of Lancaster … the Bible … worked as a battering-ram against the Established Church.
1840. Thirlwall, Greece, VII. lix. 344. Battering-rams, each 150 feet long.
2. transf. A blacksmith’s hammer suspended and worked horizontally.
1864. in Webster.
