[Of uncertain derivation. In med. Anglo-Lat. butta, buttis; Du Cange identifies butta terræ with F. bout de terre. If this be correct, the word is = F. bout ‘end, terminal part, small remaining part’ as in bouts de chandelle ‘candle-ends.’ This would make sense 2 the original, but the history is not clear, and it is not impossible that sense 1 should be referred to BUTT sb.5]
1. One of the parallel divisions of a plowed field contained between two parallel furrows, called also a ‘ridge,’ ‘rig,’ ‘land,’ or ‘selion.’
c. 1450. Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 737. Hic selio … a butt. Ibid. (c. 1475), 796. Hec amsages [sic], a but of lond.
1589. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1860), 167. I give to … my servantt, thre buttes or rigges of land.
1681. Sc. Acts Chas. II. (1814), VIII. 295 (Jam.). That other rigg or butt of the samen lyand in the ffield called the Gallowbank.
1885. A. N. Palmer, Anc. Ten. Marches N. Wales, 9. ‘Butts’ are the parallel ridges of land in a ploughed field that lie between the ‘gutters’ or ‘reens.’
† b. ? A measure of land; cf. selion. Obs.
1552. Huloet, Butte of a lande, jugus.
1570. Levins, Manip., 195. A Butte of land, iugerum.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. ii. § 32. Smaller parcells according to that quantity of ground it containeth, both for length and breadth … 3 Ridges, Butts, Flats, Stitches or small Butts, Pikes.
2. Such a ridge when short of its full length owing to the irregular shape of the boundary of the field. (This may be the original and proper sense.) Jamieson says ‘A piece of ground which in ploughing does not form a proper ridge [i.e., rig], but is excluded as an angle.’
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., 39. If it be lasse than a rodde than call it a but.
1649. Blithe, Eng. Improv. Impr. (1653), 137. I had about fifteen or sixteen little short Lands, or Buts.
1787. Winter, Syst. Husb., 276. A few buts or short ridges, which were planted with a proportion of one bushel to an acre.
1803. Rees, Cycl., Butt, a provincial term applied to such ridges or portions of arable land as run out short at the sides or other parts of the field.
1883. Seebohm, Eng. Vill. Comm., 6. Where the strips abruptly meet others, or abut upon a boundary at right angles, they are sometimes called butts.
3. dial. ‘A small piece of ground disjoined in whatever manner from the adjacent lands. In this sense, a small parcel of land is often called “the butts.”’ Jam.
1699. N. Riding Records, IV. 171. Certain closes known as Long Coverdale Close and the Butts thereunto belonging.
1875. Whitby Gloss. (E. D. S.), Butts … uneven shaped portions of waste sward.
1881. I. of Wight Gloss. (E. D. S.), Butt, a small enclosure of land, as the church butt at Shanklin. [Ibid., Batts, short ridges, odd corners of fields.]
