battering-ramn.
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 figurative).
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society > armed hostility > military equipment > weapon > engine of war > [noun] > battering-ram
rameOE
wether14..
bowstowrec1425
rammera1460
montonc1515
battle-ram1535
horse1601
battering-ram1611
ram-engine1632
battering-engine1774
battering-machine1774
1611 Bible (King James) Ezek. iv. 2 Set battering rams against it round about [cf. Coverdale Ezek. xxi. 22 Batell-rammes] . View more context for this quotation
1776 E. Gibbon Decline & Fall I. xiv. 330 The battering-rams had shaken the walls in several places.
1818 J. Bentham Church-of-Englandism 55 In the hands of Lancaster..the Bible..worked as a battering-ram against the Established Church.
1840 C. Thirlwall Hist. Greece VII. lix. 344 Battering-rams, each 150 feet long.
2. transferred. A blacksmith's hammer suspended and worked horizontally.
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1864 in Webster's Amer. Dict. Eng. Lang.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1887; most recently modified version published online March 2019).
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n.1611