catapeltic

adj

1. (archaic, not-comparable)Pertaining to a catapult or catapults.

   “[T]he superior discipline and skill of the Romans were fully compensated by the strength of position and the catapeltic engines of the Macedonians.”

   “[Dionysius, governor of the Cassandrian garrison of Munychia] held out valiantly for two days; but at length the superior forces of the enemy, and the mischief done by their catapeltic engines, drove the defenders from the walls, when Demetrius [of Phalerum] entered the fortress, Dionysius was taken, and his garrison laid down their arms: […]”

   “The western or outer, which was the narrowest front of the fortress, consisted of four towers of solid regular masonry connected by walls of equal breadth, but lower than the towers, so that balistic or catapeltic engines might be mounted upon the walls between the towers, like cannon in embrasures.”

   “Has not the pulpit, which was ordained to the exhibition of Christ crucified as the Healer of human woe, been made the arena of inflammatory debate, the platform of catapeltic controversy, destructive rather than conservative, more the instrument of the Furies than of the Graces?”

   “It missed the other's jaw by two inches, that catapeltic blow—striking him full in the mouth, breaking his yellow teeth and smashing his thick lips so that the blood sprang out in a spray over his hairy chest, and as his head rocked backward David followed with a swift left-hander, and a second time missed the jaw with his right—but drenched his clenched fist in blood.”

noun

1. (obsolete, rare)A catapult.

   “That artillery which afterward so much promoted the victories of the Roman armies, machinery for shooting darts and stones of size far beyond the strength of man's arm to throw, (Diodorus [Siculus] calls it the catapeltic) was now either invented, or first perfected, so as to be valuable for practice.”