butt
/bʌt/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.28 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The larger or thicker end of something; the blunt end, in distinction from the sharp or narrow end.
Canadian usage; American usage; Countable
noun
The larger or thicker end of something; the blunt end, in distinction from the sharp or narrow end.
Canadian usage; American usage; Countable
noun
The larger or thicker end of something; the blunt end, in distinction from the sharp or narrow end.
Canadian usage; American usage; Colloquial; Countable
Example Sentences
- "Get up off your butt and get to work."
- "I can see your butt."
- "Get your butt to the car."
- "We can't chat today. I have to get my butt to work before I'm late."
- "I walked around, picking butts from the street."
- "c. 1850-1860, Alexander Mansfield Burrill, A New Law Dictionary and Glossary The hay was growing upon headlands and butts in cornfields."
Etymology
From Middle English but, butte (“goal, mark, butt of land”), from Old English byt, bytt (“small piece of land”) and *butt (attested in diminutive Old English buttuc (“end, small piece of land”) > English buttock), from Proto-West Germanic *butt, from Proto-Germanic *buttaz (“end, piece”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰnós (“bottom”), later thematic variant of Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn ~ *bʰudʰn-, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“deep”). Cognate with Norwegian butt (“stump, block”), Faroese buttur (“wooden block”), Icelandic bútur (“piece, fragment”), Low German butt (“blunt, clumsy”). Influenced by Old French but, butte (“but, mark”), ultimately from the same Germanic source. Compare also Albanian bythë (“buttocks”), Ancient Greek πυθμήν (puthmḗn, “bottom of vessel”), Latin fundus (“bottom”) and Sanskrit बुध्न (budhná, “bottom”), from the same Proto-Indo-European root. Related to bottom, boot. PIE word *bʰudʰmḗn
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /bʌt/
- British English: /bʌt/