Word.ws English Dictionary

batrachomyomachy

/ˌbæ.tɹə.koʊ.maɪˈɑ.mə.ki/

batrachomyomachy noun: a petty quarrel.

Noun

batrachomyomachy (plural batrachomyomachies)

  1. A petty quarrel.
    • "And all 'prentice-boys, The bold lads shall fight first, with good quarterstaves, in Bideford Market, till all heads are broken; and the head which is not broken, let the back belong to it pay the penalty of the noble member's cowardice. After which grand tournament, to which that of Tottenham...1855, Charles Kingsley, chapter V, in Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan &...
    • Between these two kinds there rages a natural warfare as worthy of a burlesque poet as any batrachomyomachy that ever was fought out. It is no bad sport to watch through a magnifying glass the reciprocal attack and defence of their little lines of battle and posts of vantage.1899, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Under the Microscope, Under the Microscope

Examples of batrachomyomachy in a sentence

  • After which grand tournament, to which that of Tottenham shall be but a flea-bite and a batrachomyomachy——"1855, Charles Kingsley, chapter V, in Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, […], volume (please specify...
  • Among mammals, stoats and weasels have been mentioned as likely allies, in this batrachomyomachy where the frogs are men, but the alliance, certainly in the case of stoats, would prove dangerous.1917, “Nature's Police Force”, in The Living Age, volume 294, Boston: The Living Age Company, page 698:

Forms of batrachomyomachy

pluralbatrachomyomachies

Origin of batrachomyomachy

From Batrachomyomachia (Ancient Greek βάτραχος, frog, μῦς, mouse, and μάχη, battle), a comic epic parodying the Iliad in which a diving frog accidentally drowns a mouse riding on his back, prompting a war between the species.

Questions about batrachomyomachy

What does batrachomyomachy mean?
Batrachomyomachy means a petty quarrel.
How do you use batrachomyomachy in a sentence?
After which grand tournament, to which that of Tottenham shall be but a flea-bite and a batrachomyomachy——"
What part of speech is batrachomyomachy?
Batrachomyomachy is a noun.
How do you pronounce batrachomyomachy?
Batrachomyomachy is pronounced /ˌbæ.tɹə.koʊ.maɪˈɑ.mə.ki/ (US).
What is the plural of batrachomyomachy?
The plural of batrachomyomachy is batrachomyomachies.

Words near batrachomyomachy in the dictionary

  1. batrachology
  2. batrachomorph
  3. batrachomorphs
  4. batrachomyomachian
  5. batrachomyomachies
  6. batrachomyomachy
  7. batrachophagous
  8. batrachophobia
  9. batrachosauroidid
  10. batrachosauroidids
  11. batrachotoxin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: batrachomyomachy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-batrachomyomachy.wav.

Cite this entry: “batrachomyomachy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/batrachomyomachy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.