[Partly f. BUTT sb.4 1; partly aphetic f. ABUT.]
I. † 1. To fix or mark (out) the limits of (land, etc.) lengthwise, to bound or delimitate as to length; to terminate; to limit, bound. Chiefly in the passive, and esp. in the Conveyancing phrase ‘to be butted and bounded.’ Obs.
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., Prol. It is necessarye to be knowen howe all these maners … shulde be extended, surueyed, butted, bounded and valued.
1592. West, Symbol., C j b. Butting it at thends and bounding it at the sides.
a. 1642. Sir W. Monson, Naval Tracts, iv. (1704), 393/1. By the Eastern Discovery the length of Africk is butted out … to the Southward.
1657. Howell, Londinop., 342. A handsome new Street butted out, and fairly built by the Company of Goldsmiths.
c. 1688. 5th Coll. Papers Pres. Juncture, 18. The Scripture supposes … Mens Lands to be already butted and bounded, when it forbids removing the Ancient Land-marks.
1727. De Foe, Eng. Tradesm., I. xxv. 248. We have gained nothing by war and encroachment, we are butted and bounded just where we were in Queen Elizabeth’s time.
† b. fig. Obs.
1659. C. Noble, Inexped. Expedient, 14. The Humble Petition … hath butted and bounded our Interests.
1680. C. Nesse, Ch. Hist., 447. Antichrist and his Auxiliaries … are so Butted and Bounded by the great God.
1694. S. Johnson, Notes on Past. Lett. Bp. Burnet, I. 22. They are butted and bounded by Law.
† 2. absol. To mark out limits (in surveying). Obs.
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., 38 b. And he must stande in the myddes of the flatte whan he shall butte truely.
II. † 3. intr. To abut on, upon, against; to touch with the end (cf. BOUND v.1 3); to adjoin; = ABUT v. 2, 3. Also fig. Obs.
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., 38 b. The southe endes butteth vpon the hall orcharde … and the northe endes but vpon ryhyll.
1570. Levins, Manip., 195. To Butte, adiacere.
1565. Golding, Ovid’s Met., XIII. (1593), 321. She gat her to a hill That butted on the sea.
1581. Savile, Agric. (1622), 188. The neerest [Britons] to France likewise resemble the French … because … that in countries butting together the same aspects of the heauens doe yeeld the same complexions of bodies.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XVIII. vi. Cn. Pompeius … never … would purchase any ground that butted or bordered upon his owne.
1682. Bunyan, Holy War (R. T. S.), 314. The remote parts of their country … do both butt and bound upon Hell-gate hill.
1685. H. More, Paralip. Prophet., 127. The expiration of the sixty-nine Weeks of Daniel which butt vpon the Manifestation of the Messias.
1720. Stow’s Surv. (ed. Strype, 1754), II. VI. iv. 650/1. Burleigh Street buts against Exeter Street.
1798. W. Hutton, Autobiog., 25. The bedstead, whose head butted against their bedside.
b. To border on, go along the margin of.
1594. Carew, Tasso (1881), 24. He euer butting on the salt-sea waue, By wayes directest doth conduct his hoast.
† 4. To butt on, upon: (of a line) to end in (a point); (of a road) to issue or lead into. (Cf. Fr. aboutir à, and ABUT 3). Also fig. Obs.
1634. Canne, Necess. Separ. (1849), 71. Their practice butteth full upon the others’ unreasonable and unsound resoning.
1656. Trapp, Comm. Matt. xxiii. 18. All the worldling’s ploughing, sailing, building, buying, buts upon commodity, he knows no other duty.
1673. Newton, in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), II. 355. Draw AK and BK butting on the eyeglass at F and E.
1678. Bunyan, Pilgr., I. 37. There are many ways butt down upon this.
1720. [see in 3].
5. intr. chiefly techn. of beams, parts of machinery, etc.: To come with one end flat against, on; usually implying that the contiguous surfaces are planes at right angles to the length of beam, etc.
1670. Cotton, Espernon, I. IV. 182. A great Beam that butted upon the Chimney of the Chamber.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), s.v. Scarf, When the ends of the two pieces are cut square, and put together, they are said to butt to one another.
1791. Smeaton, Edystone L., § 56. A lantern, that was raised upon eight fir Balks, which butted upon the solid.
1875. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Sports, II. VIII. ii. § 1. 640. From the handle to a little beyond the rowlock most sculls are square, with an oblong leather button … butting against the inside of the thowle.
6. trans. To place (timber, etc.) with its end resting against a plane surface at right angles to its length; to join (iron plates, beams, etc.) end to end, with a flat transverse juncture.
1785. Roy, in Phil. Trans., LXXV. 460. What may have been lost by constantly butting one rod against the other.
1881. Mechanic, § 1323. 608. The back has not been let in under the brickwork at F, but is merely butted against it.
¶ See also prec. vb., senses 3, 4.
