Forms: 5 bott, butte, 5–8 but, 7– butt. [First appears in 15th c., but must be much older if BUTTOCK (13th c.) be a dim. of it. Of obscure etymology: words apparently cognate are ON. butt-r (‘short’ Vigf.; but occurring only as a nickname); Da., LG. but, Du. bot, blunt, short, thickset, stumpy; Sp., Pg. boto blunt, F. bot in pied-bot (club foot). Cf. further ON. bút-r (but-r, Fritzner) log of wood, Sw. but clod, stump, MHG. butze clod, mod.G. butze(n ‘log, piece cut from a tree-trunk’ (Sanders) = sense 2 below, also ‘core of apples, catkin or bud of shrubs and trees’ (Grimm) = sense 4.
F. bout end (OF. also bot, but) is apparently not connected with these words. It has naturally been thought of as the source of the Eng. word, but it does not appear to be recorded in the specific sense of ‘thick end.’ But cf. BUTT sb.7].
1. The thicker end of anything, esp. of a tool or weapon, the part by which it is held or on which it rests; e.g., the lower end of a spear-shaft, whip-handle, fishing-rod, the broad end of the stock of a gun or pistol.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, X. ii. Sir Tristram awaked hym with the but of his spere.
1548. Hall, Chron., 10 Hen. V., 82. Round about the charet rode ccccc men of armes … with the but of their speres vpward.
1834. Scott, Wav., II. xiii. 205. The pedlar, snatching a musket … bestowed the butt of it … on the head of his late instructor.
1872. Baker, Nile Tribut., x. 158. My only way of working him [a fish] was to project the butt of the rod in the usual manner.
1873. Bennett & ‘Cavendish,’ Billiards, 25. The cues should taper gradually from a diameter of two and a half inches at the butt.
1871. Kingsley, At Last, II. xiii. 214. Three eyes in the monkey’s face, as the children call it, at the butt of the nut.
b. Angling. To give (a fish when hooked) the butt: to turn the bottom of the rod towards him, so as to get a more rigid hold upon the line; also fig.
1828. J. Wilson, in Blackw. Mag., XXIV. 275. Give her [a fish] the butt—or she is gone for ever. Ibid. (1835), XXXVIII. 121. He writes like a man who could give the butt.
1872. Baker, Nile Tribut., ix. 150. Giving him the butt, I held him by main force.
2. The trunk of a tree, esp. the thickest part just above the root.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XXIV. i. 176 (R.). Trees … proue harder to be hewed, and sooner wax dry, if a man touch them with his hand before hee set the edge of the axe to their butt.
1735. Somerville, Chase, III. 234. Then in the midst a Column high is rear’d, The But of some fair Tree.
1787. Winter, Syst. Husb., 103. The tops and buts of ash and oak are more advantageous for burning into charcoal than if sold for firing.
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 52. An oak … which squared 15 inches at the butt.
1881. Jefferies, Wood Magic, I. i. 4. A round wooden box … hollowed out from the sawn butt of an elm.
3. A buttock. Chiefly dial. and colloq. in U.S.
c. 1450. Nominale, in Wr.-Wülcker, 737. Hic lumnbus, a bott.
c. 1450. Bk. Cookery, in Holkham Coll. (1882), 58. Tak Buttes of pork and smyt them to peces.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, A v. The marow of hogges that is in the bone of the butte of porke.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 344. A Lion likewise hath but very little [marrow], to wit, in some few bones of his thighes & buts behind.
1860. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., 61. Butt … the buttocks. The word is used in the West in such phrases as, ‘I fell on my butt,’ ‘He kick’d my butt.’
1884. G. Pomeroy Keese, in Harper’s Mag., July, 299/1. Rump butts, strips, rounds, and canning beef.
4. The foot or base of a leaf-stalk; the end or tip of a branch; also Sc. a catkin. [cf. botthe, BUD sb.1]
1807–10. Tannahill, in [J. D. Burn], Autobiog. Beggar Boy (1859), 191. Siller saughs wi’ downy buts.
a. 1835. Cobbett, Eng. Gard. (1845), 127. Horse-Radish…. The butts of the leaves will grow, if put into the ground.
1870. Kingsley, in Gd. Words, 390/1. It is all jagged with the brown butts of its old fallen leaves.
b. transf. (see quot.)
1862. Ansted, Channel Isl., II. ix. (ed. 2), 238. The creature when deprived of food, throwing off part after part, till nothing remains but a little spherical butt.
5. Iron-work. (see quot.)
1831. J. Holland, Manuf. Metals, I. 89. The blocks out of which iron anvils are formed … consist of what are known to the trade by the appellation of butts.
6. Comb., as Butt-head = BUTT-END q.v.; butt-log (cf. BUTTER5); butt-piece; butt-sheath, a leather case for holding a mounted soldier’s carbine.
c. 1634. in Harper’s Mag. (1883), April, 720/2. One might thrust a pike down to the *butt-head.
1879. Lumberman’s Gaz., 15 Oct. If, in sawing a *butt log, one end of the stick is set out from the standard, our Dog will reach it and hold it firmly in its place.
1863. National (U.S.) Bank Act (1882), 21. The Comptroller of the Currency shall cause to be examined, each year, the plates, dies, *but-pieces, [etc.].
1848. W. K. Kelly, trans. L. Blanc’s Hist. Ten Y., II. 47. Their pistols were in their holsters, and their carbines in the *butt-sheaths.
¶ See also BUT sb.7, BUT sb.11.
