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ballista.

An ancient military engine, in the form of a crossbow, used for hurling large missiles.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/bəˈlɪstə/
  1. An ancient military engine, in the form of a crossbow, used for hurling large missiles.

    historical
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH-der. Proto-Hellenic *gʷəlnō Ancient Greek βᾰ́λλω (bắllō) Ancient Greek βαλλίστρᾱ (ballístrā)der. Latin ballistabor. English ballista Borrowed from Latin ballista, from Ancient Greek βαλλίστρα (ballístra), from βάλλω (bállō, “to throw”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.