Also 8 but. [perh. a. F. bout end, vbl. sb. from bouter to push out, project; but possibly a sense of BUTT sb.3, or f. BUTT v.2 II.]
1. Naut. More fully butt-end, butt-head: The end of a plank or plate in a vessel’s side that joins or butts on to the end of the next; the plane of juncture of two such planks, etc.
A vessel is said to ‘start’ or ‘spring’ a butt when a plank is loosened at the end; so a butt is said to ‘start.’ ‘Butt and butt, a term denoting that the butt ends of two planks come together, but do not overlay each other. Hook and butt, the scarphing or laying two ends of planks over each other’; Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.
1627. Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., ii. 3. Now all those plankes under water … the fore-end is called the Butt-end … if one of those ends should spring, or give way it would be a great troublesome danger to stop such a leake.
a. 1642. Sir W. Monson, Naval Tracts, iii. (1704), 345/1. Buts-end.
1644. Sir H. Manwayring, Sea-man’s Dict., s.v., A Butt is properly the end of a plancke, joyning to an other. To spring a Butt, that is, when a planke is loose at one end, and therefore they bolt all the Butt-heads: by Butt-heads, is meant the end of the plancks.
1691. T. H[ale], Acc. New Invent., 26. Starting of a But-head in a Ship’s side.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Butt [as in Manwayring].
1783. in Nicolas, Disp. Nelson (1846), VII. Add. 6. Found a but at the starboard bow to have started, from which the Ship made much water.
1802. Naval Chron., VII. 177. A … hoy … sprung a butt end, and foundered.
1859. Merc. Mar. Mag. (1860), VII. 15. Some of the paint had cracked at the joining of the butts … amidships.
c. 1860. H. Stuart, Seaman’s Catech., 70. Any place where two outside planks come together are called butt ends.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Butt-heads are the same with butt-ends.
b. Comb. butt-strap, a strip of metal riveted over the joining of two plates in an iron ship, whence butt-strapped a.
1869. Sir E. Reed, Shipbuild., ii. 35. The gutter-plate, G, is also strapped by double butt-straps. Ibid., ii. 33. The keel angle-irons … are properly butt-strapped.
1883. Nares, Constr. Ironclad, 3. A strip of iron called a butt-strap is laid over the two ends.
2. The sb. (or else the stem of BUTT v.2) occurs in comb. implying the close contact of two plane ends or edges without overlapping, as in butt-hinge, a form of hinge, also in shortened form butt; butt-joint, in Ironwork, a joint in which the pieces to be joined are placed end to end, the juncture forming a plane surface at right angles to the length; so in Carpentry (= butting-joint).
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 199. If each joint be in a plane perpendicular to one of the arrises, the joint is called a butt-joint.
1869. Eng. Mech., 19 March, 577/1. Mr. Bourne … recommends the butt-joint in boiler construction as opposed to the lap.
1881. Mechanic, § 816. The window must then be attached to the frame by a pair of hinges, 21/2 in. or 3 in. common iron butts being the most suitable.
3. Coal-min. ‘A surface [of coal] exposed at right-angles to the face’ (Raymond, Mining Gloss.).
