Battery [batterie, Fr., fr battre, to beat], beating and wounding. This, in law, includes every touching or laying hold, however trifling, of another's person or clothes, in an angry, revengeful, rude, insolent, or hostile manner. It is a good defence to prove that the alleged battery happened by misadventure, or that it was merely an amicable contest, or that it was the correcting of a child by its parent, or the punishment of a criminal by the proper officer, or that the prosecutor assaulted or beat the defendant first, and that the defendant committed the alleged battery merely in his own defence as to the criminal proceedings for battery, see (English) Offences against the Person Act, 1861 (24 & 25 Vict. c. 100), ss. 42, 43. See ASSAULT.
Battery, includes even the slightest force, no actual harm need result, it is actionable per se, Kenlin v. Gardiner, (1967) 2 QB 510; Fagan v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner, (1969) 1 QB 439; Freeman v. Home Office, (1984) QB 524.
Means a crime and a tort involving the actual, intended (or negligent) and direct use of unlawful physical force on a person without his consent (and with hostility), Wilson v. Pringle, (1986) 2 All ER 440.
Means the application of force to another, resulting in harmful or offensive contract. It is a misdemeanor under most modern statute, Black Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 146.
Means the crime or tort of intentionally or recklessly causing offensive physical contact or bodily harm (as by striking or by administering a poison or drug) that is not consented to by the victim, Webster's Dictionary of Law, Indian Edn. (2005), p. 46.