See also: Butte and butté

English edit

 
Buttes in Monument Valley
 

Etymology edit

PIE word
*bʰudʰmḗn

Borrowed from French butte (mound).

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

butte (plural buttes)

  1. (US) An isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top.
    Coordinate term: mesa
    • 2013 November 27, John Grotzinger, “The world of Mars”, in The New York Times[1]:
      Those multitoned buttes and mesas [of the Grand Canyon], and that incandescent sequence of colorful bands that make one of the natural wonders of the world so grand, can also be found over 100 million miles away [on Mars].

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

References edit

  1. ^ Hall, Joseph Sargent (1942 March 2) “1. The Vowel Sounds of Stressed Syllables”, in The Phonetics of Great Smoky Mountain Speech (American Speech: Reprints and Monographs; 4), New York: King's Crown Press, →DOI, →ISBN, § 10, page 38.

Further reading edit

Danish edit

Adjective edit

butte

  1. definite of but
  2. plural of but

French edit

Etymology edit

Feminine form of but (aim, target).

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

butte f (plural buttes)

  1. small hill, mound, hillock; knoll
    Synonyms: colline, tertre, motte
  2. heap
    Faire une butte autour des plantes de pomme de terre.
    Make a heap around the potato plants.
  3. (archery) a mound of dirt upon which targets were placed to practice shooting
  4. (by extension, figurative) butt, target

Derived terms edit

Descendants edit

  • English: butte

Further reading edit

Latin edit

Noun edit

butte

  1. ablative singular of buttis

Middle English edit

Etymology edit

From Old English byt, bytt (small piece of land) and *butt (attested in diminutive Old English buttuc (end, small piece of land) > English buttock), from Proto-West Germanic *butt, from Proto-Germanic *buttaz (end, piece).

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

butte (plural buttes)

  1. butt

Descendants edit

References edit

Norwegian Bokmål edit

Adjective edit

butte

  1. definite singular of butt
  2. plural of butt

Norwegian Nynorsk edit

Adjective edit

butte

  1. definite singular of butt
  2. plural of butt