these two get mixed up a lot because a lot of people

and even some laws use the words interchangeably

basically the difference is that battery means touching someone and assault

means making someone think you're going to touch them

for battery the touch can be harmful

or it can be offensive

even if it doesn't cause any physical injury as long as the first person meant

to touch the second and it causes harm its battery

even if they didn't mean to cause the harm

if the touch is something that is acceptable for reasonable person to do

in everyday life then it won't be a battery even if it causes harm

after all we have to touch strangers all the time and we don't want

all of them suing us

assault on the other hand is when you do something that would make a reasonable

person think that you're about to touch them in a harmful or offensive way

in short it's making someone think you're going to batter them

you can even assault someone if you have no intention of actually hitting them

as long as they don't know that, but you can't assault someone if they can tell

there's no way you can actually touch them

all this together means you have assault without battery

or battery without assault

and there you have it