ballistan.

Etymology: < classical Latin ballista (also bālista) military engine used to hurl stones and other missiles, in post-classical Latin also crossbow (7th cent.; frequently from 12th cent. in British sources), medical instrument (1363 in Chauliac) < Hellenistic Greek or Byzantine Greek βαλλιστής , attested as the name of a constellation < ancient Greek βαλλίζειν to throw projectiles ( < βάλλειν to throw, of uncertain origin + -ίζειν -ize suffix) + -τής , suffix forming agent nouns. Compare Anglo-Norman and Middle French, French baliste (1272 or earlier in Anglo-Norman in a translation of Vegetius), Catalan ballesta (13th cent.), Spanish ballesta , †balesta (end of the 12th cent.), Italian balista (a1527). Compare arbalest n. (and see discussion at that entry), manubalist n.Old English pālistas (dative plural) is attested only once (see quot. eOE at sense 1), apparently as an unassimilated borrowing of classical Latin bālistas, accusative plural of bālista (variant of ballista), which probably reflects the form in the lost exemplar; J. Bately ( Old Eng. Orosius (1980) p. cxii) sees the replacement of initial b- by p- in this and other words in the text as possible evidence that the supposed scriptorium dictator was a man whose language was influenced by Welsh. The word was evidently reborrowed in the 15th cent., and there is no continuity of use with the Old English.