Battery
Two or more pieces lined up on the same file, rank, or diagonal so they reinforce an attack or threat along that line.
A common battery pairs a queen behind a bishop on a diagonal, or a queen behind a rook on a file, so that removing the front piece still leaves the line under attack from behind.
Etymology
Battery is a military-artillery metaphor that chess borrowed intact. Etymonline records batterie entering English in the 1530s in the sense of the action of battering, from Old French baterie meaning beating, thrashing, assault, from the verb batre, ultimately from Latin battuere, to beat. The artillery sense, a unit or emplacement of guns acting together, is recorded in English from the 1550s, and it is that sense the chess usage draws on. Wikipedia defines a chess battery as a formation of two or more pieces on the same rank, file, or diagonal, while noting that some authors restrict the term to an arrangement aligned with the enemy king so that moving the front piece discovers check. In chess-problem terminology the front piece is said to fire the battery when it moves away to discover the attack, which keeps the gunnery image alive. No source fetched gives a date for the first chess use of the word.
First documented: n.a. — n.a.
Translations
Translations for this term haven't been added yet.