From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbattalionbat‧tal‧ion /bəˈtæljən/ noun [countable] 1 PMAa large group of soldiers consisting of several companies (company)2 a large group of people who are doing something with a particular purposebattalion of a battalion of supporters
Examples from the Corpus
battalion• Our unit was a general support artillery battalion.• As for the Danuese battalion, the Sons of Death, as they called themselves, a few still had revenge on their minds.• It was the custom then to double the size of most infantry battalions and of many gunner and other units.• Miles ahead of us the lead company in the battalion was reporting machine-gun fire near the pass at 3000 feet.• On the way in, the battalion commander called in Puff the Magic Dragon.• All communication was lost between Charlie Company and the rest of the battalion.• He has seen the battalions, squadrons, tanks, infantry, and so on.• In the night of 28-29 December, two battalions penetrated in large numbers into Makamba Province.Origin battalion (1500-1600) French bataillon, from Old Italian battaglione, from battaglia “group of soldiers, battle”, from Late Latin battalia; → BATTLE1 