English
combat
Combat comes from Old French combatre ‘to combat’, and goes back to Latin battuō ‘to beat, strike’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEbattuō1as battuere‘to beat’
- Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*combattere1‘to combat’reconstructed
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400combatre1‘to combat’
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600combat1
- Englishearliest quotation 1671combat1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English combat
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1671, John Milton: “To combat with a blind man I disdain.”.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEbattuōWiktionary, English combatas battuere‘to beat’
- Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*combattereWiktionary, English combat‘to combat’reconstructed
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400combatreWiktionary, English combat‘to combat’
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600combatWiktionary, English combat
- Englishearliest quotation 1671combatWiktionary, English combat. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1671, John Milton: “To combat with a blind man I disdain.”
The story
16th century, borrowed from Middle French combat, deverbal from Old French combatre, from Vulgar Latin *combattere, from Latin com- (‘with’) + battuere (‘to beat, strike’).
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with combat, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *bʰedʰh₂- ‘to stab, dig’
through Latin battuō ‘to beat, strike’
19 more relatives in the full family tree
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Today it means
noun A battle, a fight (often one in which weapons are used).
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “combat”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Latin battuō / combat