em·bat·tled

(ĕm-băt′ld)

adj.

1. Prepared or fortified for battle or engaged in battle: embattled troops; an embattled city.

2. Beset with attackers, criticism, or controversy: an embattled legislative minority.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

embattled

(ɪmˈbætəld)

adj

1. prepared for or engaged in conflict, controversy, or battle

2. (Heraldry) heraldry having an indented edge resembling battlements

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

em•bat•tled

(ɛmˈbæt ld)

adj.

1. disposed or prepared for battle.

2. engaged in or beset by conflict or struggle.

[1350–1400]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.	1.	embattled - prepared for battle; "an embattled city" prepared - made ready or fit or suitable beforehand; "a prepared statement"; "be prepared for emergencies"
	2.	embattled - having or resembling repeated square indentations like those in a battlement; "a crenelated molding" castellated, castled, battlemented fancy - not plain; decorative or ornamented; "fancy handwriting"; "fancy clothes"

Translations

attaccato

embattled

[ɪmˈbætld] ADJ [army] → en orden de batalla; [city] → sitiado

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

embattled

[ɪmˈbæt^əld] adj

(= beleaguered) [person, group, organization] → en difficulté

(involved in fighting) [area] → assiégé(e)

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

embattled

adj

(= besieged) → belagert; (= fought over) → umkämpft; (= fighting) → kämpfend

(fig) person, government → bedrängt

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

embattled

[ɪmˈbætld] adj

a. (castle) → assediato/a

b. (person, government) → in difficoltà

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

for I have heard How, when the Ch`is and Weis embattled rose Along the frontier, when the Chings and Hans Gathered their multitudes, a myriad leagues Of utter weariness they trod.

View in context

It follows them from an earlier date and could not easily be changed, and it may serve to recall to an elder generation than this the time when their author was breaking so many lances in the great, forgotten war between Realism and Romanticism that the floor of the "Editor's Study" in Harper's Magazine was strewn with the embattled splinters.

View in context

A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr.

View in context

This time the outlaw threw his fierce horde completely around the embattled pile, before he advanced with a score of sturdy ruffians to reconnoiter.

View in context

The two boys were sworn friends all the week, and embattled enemies on Saturdays.

View in context

Tibby neither wished to strengthen the position of the rich nor to improve that of the poor, and so was well content to watch the elms nodding behind the mildly embattled parapets of Magdalen.

View in context

We shall not try to give the reader an idea of that tetrahedral nose, that horseshoe mouth; that little left eye obstructed with a red, bushy, bristling eyebrow, while the right eye disappeared entirely beneath an enormous wart; of those teeth in disarray, broken here and there, like the embattled parapet of a fortress; of that callous lip, upon which one of these teeth encroached, like the tusk of an elephant; of that forked chin; and above all, of the expression spread over the whole; of that mixture of malice, amazement, and sadness.

View in context

And she flew past old castles of by-gone days of chivalry, where the red walls and the embattled gables were mirrored in the canal, where the swans were swimming, and peered up into the old cool avenues.

View in context

It begins at the water's edge, with a fringe of hotels, and scrambles up and spreads itself over two or three sharp hills in a crowded, disorderly, but picturesque way, offering to the eye a heaped-up confusion of red roofs, quaint gables, dormer windows, toothpick steeples, with here and there a bit of ancient embattled wall bending itself over the ridges, worm-fashion, and here and there an old square tower of heavy masonry.

View in context

The single window opened upon an embattled space surmounting the turret, which gave Rebecca, at first sight, some hopes of escaping; but she soon found it had no communication with any other part of the battlements, being an isolated bartisan, or balcony, secured, as usual, by a parapet, with embrasures, at which a few archers might be stationed for defending the turret, and flanking with their shot the wall of the castle on that side.

View in context

She ruins States, and overthrows the home, She dissipates and routs the embattled host; While discipline preserves the ordered ranks.

View in context

But all the forces of their empire, though they were to bring two millions of men into the field together, would be able to do nothing but ruin the country and starve themselves; a million of their foot could not stand before one embattled body of our infantry, posted so as not to be surrounded, though they were not to be one to twenty in number; nay, I do not boast if I say that thirty thousand German or English foot, and ten thousand horse, well managed, could defeat all the forces of China.

View in context