Battling

How to spell battling

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce battling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does battling mean?

1. verbFighting or struggling hard against an opponent, problem, or difficult condition.

Battling in a sentence

• The two firms have been battling for the same contract all year.

• She spent the morning battling heavy traffic to reach the airport.

Where does battling come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the present participle of the verb 'battle', which entered English in the 1300s from the Old French verb 'bataillier', meaning 'to fight'. That word grew from the noun 'bataille', a fight or combat, which descended from the Late Latin 'battualia', meaning 'military or gladiatorial exercises', literally the drills of fighting. The deeper root is the Latin verb 'battuere', meaning 'to beat or strike', a word that also gave English 'batter', 'battery' and 'combat'. Over time the sense softened from organised armed conflict to any hard struggle, so today one can be battling traffic or battling an illness. The doubled 't' in the modern spelling preserves the short vowel of that ancient 'battuere' root, and dropping the silent 'e' of 'battle' before adding '-ing' is the only spelling step to watch.

How the word is built

• battl- (from battle, a fight or struggle)
• -ing (present participle suffix)