assault and battery
17
6.1
- noun
- /əˈsɔlt ənd ˈbætəri/
- Specialized
:
agresión
- The defendant was convicted of assault and battery after attacking his neighbor without warning.
- assault and battery case
Your honor, you're telling me that I'm going to jail for assault and battery?
- Your honor, you're telling me that I'm going to jail for assault and battery?
Examples
-
The SFPD prides itself on treating sexual assault and battery victims with concern and sympathy.
Blog text (14) -
One man's unwanted touching of another man's wife is assault and battery, not a brawl.
Blog text (30) -
Anyway, we can book him for assault and battery.
-
Now, we'll have you arrested for assault and battery.
-
And this time, he's charged with assault and battery.
-
This is a misdemeanor court hearing on an assault and battery charge.
-
Unsurprisingly, he wants to file assault and battery charges.
Fiction book (2002) -
All she could do was apologize profusely and hope he didn't press charges for assault and battery.
Fiction book (2002) -
The court has weighed your story against another man's, that's all any court in the land can do, and the way things are now, I got to find you guilty of assault and battery and disturbing the peace.
-
After the fight broke out, multiple witnesses reported the assault and battery to the police.
Synonyms
∞
2.8
The use of physical force that hurts people or damages things
276
4.2
Hitting a person many times as punishment or violence
87
7.6
Touching another person on purpose in a harmful or offensive way, often a crime
25
7.9
A violent attack on someone, often with a weapon, that causes serious injury
18
6.5
Repeated violent hitting or strong criticism that causes harm
7
4.4
A violent act of hitting a person or damaging a thing
6
6.7
A severe beating given to someone as punishment
4
8.6
A violent attack where a person is hit many times
Antonyms
How Violent
- NSFW
25
7.9
- Specialized
17
6.1
- Specialized
378
4.5
∞
2.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a direct coordination of two nouns whose meanings — 'assault' (threat/attempted harm) and 'battery' (unlawful physical contact) — combine to denote the criminal act of threatening and then physically attacking someone. This compositional, legal collocation is common across languages and follows a straightforward additive logic, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words can infer the full meaning.
Etymology
Assault and battery comes from two parts: assault, the threat that makes someone afraid, and battery, the actual hit or unwanted touch. So, it means 'threatening to harm someone and then physically attacking them'.