v. [appears to represent two Fr. vbs. of cognate origin; OFr. abouter ‘toucher par un bout,’ abouter à, sur, to border on (countries, estates), mod. Fr. abouter, techn. to join two things end to end, f. à to + bout end; and OFr. abuter, ‘toucher au but,’ f. à to + but end, mod. Fr. abuter, 16th c. abutter, to put end to end, touch with an end, as ‘toutes les rues qui abuttoient à la maison de ville’ (Littré); in la Vendée they use abutter to signify ‘mettre un support à un mur’ (Godefroi). Cf. also mod. Fr. aboutir to touch with an end, terminate in or on. In reference to boundaries abut represents abouter; architecturally it = abuter, abutter. The position of sense 1 is uncertain.]
† 1. intr. To stick out, lean forward (as in looking out at a window or over a battlement). Obs.
c. 1230. Ancren Riwle, 62. Ne aboutie heo nout vt et ham, [the battlements] leste heo þes deofles quarreaus habbe amidden þen eien.
2. To end at, march with, border on, as contiguous lands or estates do.
1463. Manners & Househ. Exp. of Eng., 461. A pece of pastor … abuttynge to Hogge medew on the northe.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah Sight, IV. ii. 22. The land alotted him [Ishmael] ranged out so far, that the bounds and borders thereof abutted on all his kindred.
1793. White, Nat. Hist. Selb. (1853), i. 11. Being very large and extensive it [Selborne parish] abuts on twelve parishes.
1837. W. Howitt, Rur. Life (1862), III. iii. 229. Such is the region which abuts upon the Yorkshire dales.
b. trans. (on omitted.)
1871. Athenæum, 25 March, 374. We discovered a hole in the pavement abutting the wall.
1882. Pall Mall G., 31 May, 2/2. The Rotherhithe Baths, abutting Southwark Park.
3. To end on or against, to touch with a projecting end or point; to lean upon at one end. Properly said of the end or corner of anything projecting so as to touch or lean on the side of another.
1578. T. N., trans. Conq. of W. India, 201. It is made of stone, with foure dores that abutteth upon the three calseys.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie (1869), 133. If their last sillables abut not vpon the consonant in the beginning of another word.
1833. Lyell, Princ. Geol., III. 348. Tertiary strata of the older Pliocene epoch abut against vertical mica-schist.
1836. Todd, Cycl. An. & Ph., I. 281/2. In the Ostrich the last rib abuts against the ilium.
1868. Milman, St. Paul’s, viii. 190. The Chapter House abutted on the south aisle of the Cathedral.
b. trans. (on omitted.)
1864. Athenæum, No. 1929, 505/3. The arches are abutted by outstanding structures.
4. trans. To cause to end against; to project.
1802. J. Playfair, Illustr. Huttonian Th., 378. Such a face … can have been produced only by having been abutted against some stratified rock.
