battlefieldn.
/ˈbatlfiːld/, U.S. /ˈbæd(ə)lˌfild/ 1. The piece of ground on which a battle is fought. Cf. field of battle at field n.1 6a.
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society > armed hostility > armed encounter > battlefield > [noun]
fieldeOE
place?c1225
fletc1275
champ of battlec1300
champany?a1400
o laundon?a1400
palaestrac1425
battle-stead1487
fighting-stead1487
open fielda1500
spear-field1508
joining-place1513
camp1525
foughten field1569
battleground1588
Aceldama1607
champian?1611
field of honour1611
champaign1614
standing ground1662
fighting-field1676
battlefield1715
1715 ‘J. C. Whitelock’ Right Brunswick-mum 10 Ramillies shall you lasting Glory yield, Where you gain'd Wreaths of Lawrel from the Field, The Battle Field, which of your Foes will say, How thick they fell, how fast they ran away.
1767 J. Barclay Rejoice Evermore 291 Audacious ones! how then presume ye, On battle-field to fill the list, Against Jehovah and his Christ?
1813 Daily National Intelligencer (Washington) 4 Dec. The battle-field was very large, and entirely covered with grass.
1898 Argosy Sept. 376 The regiment was encamped on the old battlefield.
1919 Jrnl. Industr. & Engin. Chem. 11 281/2 Activated charcoal..helped to make the American gas mask the best mask found on any foreign battlefield.
1977 H. Innes Big Footprints i. ii. 47 More craters. A burned-out scout car, some lorries, gaping holes, then we were clear of the battlefield.
2011 Wall St. Jrnl. 12 Sept. a19/4 The U.S. military allowed correspondents onto the battlefields only if they embedded with military units.
2. In extended use: any area or location (physical or conceptual) which is a locus for conflict, contention, hostile disagreement, etc. Cf. battleground n. 2a.
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the mind > attention and judgement > testing > debate, disputation, argument > controversy, dispute, argument > [noun] > matter of controversy
causea1500
wrangle1579
vexed question1614
vexata quaestioa1634
controversial1653
battlefield1820
1820 W. Scott Abbot II. vii. 220 The French and English have..made Scotland the battle-field on which to fight out their own ancient quarrel.
1831 G. P. R. James in A. Picken Club-bk. I. 15 One of those uncertain days of spring which winter and summer seem to fix upon as a common battle-field.
1880 London Q. Rev. Apr. 222 What will especially commend his volume to most readers is the tone of sobriety in dealing with a book which has so long been a battle-field of extreme Theorists, Preterists and Futurists, and Speculatists.
1941 J. S. Huxley Uniqueness of Man ii. 82 Twenty-five years ago..the field of heredity was still a battle-field. The Mendelians and the Biometricians were disputing for its possession.
1993 Discover July 16/1 To him that meadow is just the latest battlefield in the primordial struggle between plants and the animals that eat them.
2007 Guardian 12 Feb. 34/1 This was choreography that viewed the body as an emotional battlefield, and performance as a kind of extreme sport.
Compounds
As a modifier, with the sense ‘of or relating to a battlefield; situated or occurring on a battlefield; for use on the battlefield’.
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1806 J. Montgomery Wanderer of Switzerland & Other Poems 169 Ye Britons! who dwell where we conquer'd of old, Who inherit our battle-field graves.
1873 Med. Times & Gaz. 28 June 693/2 Evans and Wormull..exhibit as their speciality a battle-field dressing-pouch or valise, about the size of a lady's handbag, which is very compact and portable.
1956 Mil. Rev. June 7/2 On grounds of humanity..the chemical weapon is much to be preferred to the atomic weapon even in battlefield use.
1989 Amer. Rifleman Nov. 62/1 Battlefield attrition and neglect of surviving pieces had made shootable originals quite rare.
2005 Wired Nov. 142/1 In March, a Washington State National Guard EOD team in Iraq tried out the world's first battlefield laser blaster, a Humvee-mounted ray gun called Zeus.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2021).
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n.1715