batrachomyomachy

English

Etymology

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.

Noun

batrachomyomachy (plural batrachomyomachies)

1. A petty quarrel.
   • 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 & Co., →OCLC:

     "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 shall be but a flea-bite and a batrachomyomachy——"

   • 1899, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Under the Microscope, Under the Microscope:

     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.

   • 1917, “Nature's Police Force”, in The Living Age, volume 294, Boston: The Living Age Company, page 698:

     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.

Related terms

• batrachomyomachian
• batrachomyomachize

References

• “batrachomyomachy”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.