Wiktionary

butt

See also: Butt, but, bút, bût, būt, and but-

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English but, butte (“goal, mark, butt of land”), 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”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰnós (“bottom”), later thematic variant of Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn ~ *bʰudʰn-, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“deep”). Cognate with Norwegian butt (“stump, block”), Icelandic bútur (“piece, fragment”), Low German butt (“blunt, clumsy”). Influenced by Old French but, butte (“but, mark”), ultimately from the same Germanic source. Compare also Albanian bythë (“buttocks”), Ancient Greek πυθμήν (puthmḗn, “bottom of vessel”), Latin fundus (“bottom”) and Sanskrit बुध्न (budhná, “bottom”), from the same Proto-Indo-European root. Related to bottom, boot.

PIE word
*bʰudʰmḗn

Noun

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butt (plural butts)

  1. (countable) The larger or thicker end of something; the blunt end, in distinction from the sharp or narrow end
    1. (Canada, US, Philippines, slang) The buttocks or anus (used as a minced oath in idiomatic expressions; less objectionable than arse/ass).
      Get up off your butt and get to work.
      1. (slang) The whole buttocks and pelvic region that includes one's private parts.
        I can see your butt.
      3. (slang, metonymic) Body; self.
        Get your butt to the car.
        We can't chat today. I have to get my butt to work before I'm late.
    2. (leather trades) The thickest and stoutest part of tanned oxhides, used for soles of boots, harness, trunks.
  2. (countable) The waste end of anything.
    2. (slang) A used cigarette.
    3. A piece of land left unplowed at the end of a field.
      • c. 1850-1860, Alexander Mansfield Burrill, A New Law Dictionary and Glossary
        The hay was growing upon headlands and butts in cornfields.
    4. (obsolete, West Country) Hassock.
    5. (US) A crust end-piece of a loaf of bread.
      Synonyms: boot, heel
  3. (countable, generally) An end of something, often distinguished in some way from the other end.
    1. The end of a firearm opposite to that from which a bullet is fired.
      She was hit in the face with the butt of a shotgun.
    2. (lacrosse) The plastic or rubber cap used to cover the open end of a lacrosse stick's shaft in order to reduce injury.
    3. The portion of a half-coupling fastened to the end of a hose.
    4. The end of a connecting rod or other like piece, to which the boxing is attached by the strap, cotter, and gib.
    5. (mechanical) A joint where the ends of two objects come squarely together without scarfing or chamfering.
      Synonym: butt joint
    6. (carpentry) A kind of hinge used in hanging doors, etc., so named because it is attached to the inside edge of the door and butts against the casing, instead of on its face, like the strap hinge; also called butt hinge.
    7. (shipbuilding) The joint where two planks in a strake meet.
    8. The blunt back part of an axehead or large blade. Also called the poll.
      • 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 231:
        I put out my hand and felt the meat-chopper hanging to the wall. In a flash I was after him. [...] With one last touch of humanity I turned the blade back and struck him with the butt.
    9. (dialect or nautical, possibly dated) The direction from which the wind blows.
      • 1865, Arthur Kavanagh, The Cruise of the R.Y.S. Eva, page 62:
        […] when the sun gets round to the butt of the wind, the change, if any is coming, is then to be expected.
      • 2013 April 16, G. W. Maunsell, The Fisherman's Vade Mecum - A Compendium of Precepts, Counsel, Knowledge and Experience in Most Matters Pertaining to Fishing for Trout, Sea Trout, S, Read Books Ltd, →ISBN:
        […] 'the butt' of the wind, the wind will increase or continue. When the sky is light and clear in 'the butt' of the wind, the wind will die away. A strong wind which changes round with the sun E to S to W (clockwise) will die away, and […]
  4. (countable) A limit; a bound; a goal; the extreme bound; the end.
    1. A mark to be shot at; a target.
      • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], line 186:
        To which is fixed, as an aim or butt […]
      • 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 37:
        The inhabitants of all cities and towns were ordered to make butts, and to keep them in repair, under a penalty of twenty shillings per month, and to exercise themselves in shooting at them on holidays.
      • 1697, Virgil, “The Second Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
        The groom his fellow groom at butts defies, / And bends his bow, and levels with his eyes.
    3. (usually as "butt of (a) joke") A person at whom ridicule, jest, or contempt is directed.
      Synonym: laughing stock
      He's usually the butt of their jokes.
      • 1711 October 1 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “THURSDAY, September 20, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 175; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:
        I played a sentence or two at my butt, which I thought very smart.
        The spelling has been modernized.
      • 1876, Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, Annals of Tacitus., translation of original by Cornelius Tacitus, page 300:
        The man was one of the most conspicuously infamous sights in the imperial court, bred, as he had been, in a shoemaker's shop, of a deformed person and vulgar wit, originally introduced as a butt.
    4. The hut or shelter of the person who attends to the targets in rifle practice.
Usage notes
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Translations
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Verb

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butt (third-person singular simple present butts, present participle butting, simple past and past participle butted)

  1. To join at the butt, end, or outward extremity; to terminate; to be bounded; to abut.
Derived terms
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See also
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Etymology 2

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From Middle English butten, from Anglo-Norman buter, boter (“to push, butt, strike”), from Frankish *bautan (“to hit, beat”), from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to beat, push”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewd- (“to beat, push, strike”). Cognate with Old English bēatan (“to beat”). More at beat.

Verb

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butt (third-person singular simple present butts, present participle butting, simple past and past participle butted)

  1. (transitive) To strike bluntly, particularly with the head.
    • 1651, Henry Wotton, A Description of the Country's Recreations:
      Two harmless lambs are butting one the other.
  2. (intransitive) To strike bluntly with the head.
    Rams butt at other males during mating season.
  3. (transitive, intransitive, eastern Canada, parts of the northeastern US) To cut in line (in front of someone).
    Teacher! He just butted me!
    • 2016, Chandler, Dan, Bullying in Plain Sight: How Inattentive Adults Encourage the School Bullies, Mustang, O.K.: Tate Publishing and Enterprises, LLC, →ISBN, page 45:
      Additionally, kids are pinched, fondled, propositioned, and hit; and it all goes unseen amid the general confusion and nonspecific orders from the cafeteria supervisors who are yelling things like, "Keep it down, you people!" "No butting!" "Wait your turn, boys!" All of which sound as though there is law and order, just no actual justice to the victim.
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Translations
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Noun

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butt (plural butts)

  1. A push, thrust, or sudden blow, given by the head; a head butt.
    Be careful in the pen, that ram can knock you down with a butt.
    The handcuffed suspect gave the officer a desperate butt in the chest.
    • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 167:
      Its noise attracted its outside mate, and the child gloried in its buzzing butts to get in.
  2. A thrust in fencing.
    • 1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Alma: Or, The Progress of the Mind”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], and John Barber […], →OCLC:
      To prove who gave the fairer butt, / John shows the chalk on Robert's coat.
Translations
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Etymology 3

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From Middle English bit, bitte, bytte, butte (“leather bottle”), from Old English bytt, byt (from Proto-West Germanic *buttjā) and Old French boute (“cask”) and other etymologies on this page, all from Vulgar Latin *buttia. Doublet of boccia.

Noun

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butt (plural butts)

  1. (English units) An English measure of capacity for liquids, containing 126 wine gallons which is one-half tun.
    Synonym: pipe
    Coordinate terms: (in order of increasing volume) rundlet; barrel; tierce; hogshead; puncheon, tertian; tun
    • 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, page 205:
      Again, by 28 Hen. VIII, cap. 14, it is re-enacted that the tun of wine should contain 252 gallons, a butt of Malmsey 126 gallons, a pipe 126 gallons, a tercian or puncheon 84 gallons, a hogshead 63 gallons, a tierce 41 gallons, a barrel 31.5 gallons, a rundlet 18.5 gallons. –
  3. A wooden cask for storing wine, usually containing 126 gallons.
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Translations
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Etymology 4

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From Middle English but, butte, botte (“flounder; plaice; turbot”), possibly derived from sense 1 (“blunt end”), meaning "blunt-headed fish." Compare Dutch bot and the second element of English halibut.

Cognate with West Frisian bot, German Low German Butt, German Butt, Butte, Swedish butta.

Alternative forms

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Noun

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butt (plural butts)

  1. (Northern England) Any of various flatfish such as sole, plaice or turbot
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 5

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(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

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butt (plural butts)

  1. (dated, West Country and Ireland) A heavy two-wheeled cart.
  2. (dated, West Country and Ireland) A three-wheeled cart resembling a wheelbarrow.
Derived terms
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Etymology 6

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
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Originally apparently a less-desired cut, named either due to its often being packed in butts (“casks”) for storage and shipping, or from the use of butt to refer to "the larger or thicker end of something, in distinction from the sharp or narrow end" or "the waste end".

Noun

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butt (plural butts)

  1. The shoulder of an animal, especially the portion above the picnic, as a cut of meat.
    • 1926, E. C. Johnson, Edward James Wilford, Ernest Newton Fergus, George Roberts, Henry Ernest Curtis, John B. Hutson, Oscar Bernard Jesness, William Durrett Nicholls, Man Labor, Horse Work and Materials Used in Producing Crops in Christian County, page 365:
      Cut the foot off one inch above the joint, as this makes a much neater looking shoulder. The top third of the shoulder that was removed from the “California ham” is known as the shoulder butt. This piece is divided into lean butt ("Boston Butt") and fat butt ("Clear Plate") […] The lean butt makes an excellent roast.
    • 2003, Harry Jordan, Meat Harry: A Meat Lover's Guide to Buying and Preparing Beef, Pork, and Poultry, GeneralStore PublishingHouse, →ISBN, page 114:
      Alternative choices for the shoulder butt oven roast: if you are buying the butt of pork then you must enjoy the flavour that you get only with the fattiet cuts of meat; consequently I suggest the boneless pork loin rib end. Apart from the butt, this wonderful piece of pork has the most fat […]
    • 2019 July 22, Chris Grove, The Offset Smoker Cookbook: Pitmaster Techniques and Mouthwatering Recipes for Authentic, Low-and-Slow BBQ, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 85:
      Wrap the pork butt. Work quickly and purposefully to minimize the time the pork butt is out of the smoker. Place the pork butt in the center of a single 18 x 36-inch piece of foil.

References

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  • Wright, Joseph (1898) The English Dialect Dictionary‎[1], volume 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pages 463–465
  • Patricia T. O'Conner, Stewart Kellerman quoting Steve Hartman Keiser (2021 December 27) “Cut, butt, skip, or ditch in line?”, in Grammarphobia‎[2], archived from the original on 2023-05-21: “He says "budding" (or "butting") "appears to have a wider general distribution than budging" and "can be found in eastern Canada, upstate New York (where budging is also attested), Pennsylvania, Maryland, and northern Ohio."”

Further reading

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Norwegian Bokmål

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Etymology

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From Middle Low German butt, bott.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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butt (neuter singular butt, definite singular and plural butte, comparative buttere, indefinite superlative buttest, definite superlative butteste)

  1. blunt (not sharp)
  2. (vinkel) obtuse (angle between 90 and 180 degrees)

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Norwegian Nynorsk

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Etymology 1

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From Middle Low German butt, bott.

Adjective

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butt (neuter singular butt, definite singular and plural butte, comparative buttare, indefinite superlative buttast, definite superlative buttaste)

  1. blunt (not sharp)
  2. (vinkel) obtuse (angle between 90 and 180 degrees)

Etymology 2

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See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

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butt

  1. past participle of bu

References

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