bottom

• botton (dialectal)

From Middle English botme, botome, bothom, bothum, botham, from Old English botm, bodan (“ground, soil, lowest part”), from Proto-Germanic *butmaz (compare Old Norse botn, Swedish botten), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰud-, a variant of Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰ-, *bʰudʰmḗn. The other Proto-Germanic variant of the root, *budm-, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰ-, gave rise to Dutch bodem (“bottom, ground”), Old Frisian boden (“soil”), German Boden (“ground, earth, soil”). For cognates in other branches of Indo-European, compare Sanskrit बुध्न (budhna), Ancient Greek πυθμήν (puthmḗn, “foundation”), Latin fundus (“bottom, piece of land, farm”), Old Irish bond (“sole of the foot”), Albanian buzë (“lip, end, rim”). Meaning "posterior of a man" is from 1794; the verb "to reach the bottom of" is from 1808. Bottom dollar "the last dollar one has" is from 1882.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbɒtəm/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbɑtəm/, [ˈbɑɾəm]

• Audio (US)

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• Audio

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bottom (countable and uncountable, plural bottoms)

1. The lowest part of anything.
   • Macaulay

     barrels with the bottom knocked out

   • Washington Irving

     No two chairs were alike; such high backs and low backs and leather bottoms and worsted bottoms.

   Footers appear at the bottoms of pages.

2. (uncountable, Britain, slang) Character, reliability, staying power, dignity, integrity or sound judgment.

   lack bottom

3. (Britain, US) A valley, often used in place names.

   Where shall we go for a walk? How about Ashcombe Bottom?

   • Stoddard

     the bottoms and the high grounds

4. The buttocks or anus.
5. (nautical) A cargo vessel, a ship.
   • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:

     We sail in leaky bottoms and on great and perilous waters; [...]

6. (nautical) Certain parts of a vessel, particularly the cargo hold or the portion of the ship that is always underwater.
   • Shakespeare

     My ventures are not in one bottom trusted.

   • Bancroft

     Not to sell the teas, but to return them to London in the same bottoms in which they were shipped.

7. (baseball) The second half of an inning, the home team's turn at bat.
8. (BDSM) A submissive in sadomasochistic sexual activity.
9. (LGBT, slang) A man penetrated or with a preference for being penetrated during homosexual intercourse.
10. (physics) A bottom quark.
11. (often figuratively) The lowest part of a container.
    • 2011 December 21, Helen Pidd, “Europeans migrate south as continent drifts deeper into crisis”, in the Guardian‎:

      In Ireland, where 14.5% of the population are jobless, emigration has climbed steadily since 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed and the bottom fell out of the Irish housing market. In the 12 months to April this year, 40,200 Irish passport-holders left, up from 27,700 the previous year, according to the central statistics office. Irish nationals were by far the largest constituent group among emigrants, at almost 53%.

12. A ball or skein of thread; a cocoon.
    • Mortimer

      Silkworms finish their bottoms in […] fifteen days.

13. The bed of a body of water, as of a river, lake, or sea.
14. An abyss.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

15. (obsolete) Power of endurance.

    a horse of a good bottom

16. (obsolete) Dregs or grounds; lees; sediment.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)

17. (usually: bottoms or bottomland) Low-lying land near a river with alluvial soil.

• (lowest part): base
• (buttocks): See Thesaurus:buttocks
• (buttocks, British, euphemistic): sit upon, derriere, 🍑
• (BDSM): catcher
• (LGBT): See Thesaurus:male homosexual

• (lowest part): top
• (BDSM): top
• (LGBT): See Thesaurus:male homosexual

bottom (third-person singular simple present bottoms, present participle bottoming, simple past and past participle bottomed)

1. To fall to the lowest point.
   • John J. Murphy, Intermarket Analysis: Profiting from Global Market Relationships (2004) page 119:

     The Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed on September 24, 2001. The CRB Index bottomed on October 24.

2. To establish firmly; to found or justify on or upon something; to set on a firm footing; to set or rest on or upon something which provides support or authority.
   • Atterbury

     Action is supposed to be bottomed upon principle.

   • South

     those false and deceiving grounds upon which many bottom their eternal state

   • United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Executive Orders and Presidential Directives, (2001) p.59.

     Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that the President must obey outstanding executive orders, even when bottomed on the Constitution, until they are revoked.

3. (intransitive) To rest, as upon an ultimate support; to be based or grounded.
   • John Locke

     Find on what foundation any proposition bottoms.

4. (intransitive) To reach or impinge against the bottom, so as to impede free action, as when the point of a cog strikes the bottom of a space between two other cogs, or a piston the end of a cylinder.
5. (obsolete, transitive) To wind round something, as in making a ball of thread.
   • Shakespeare

     As you unwind her love from him, / Lest it should ravel and be good to none, / You must provide to bottom it on me.

6. (transitive) To furnish with a bottom.

   to bottom a chair

7. (intransitive) To be the submissive in a BDSM relationship or roleplay.
8. (intransitive) To be anally penetrated in gay sex.

   I've never bottomed in my life.

• bottom out

bottom (not comparable)

1. The lowest or last place or position.

   Those files should go on the bottom shelf.

• bottommost

Borrowed from English bottom.

bottom (plural bottoms)

1. (LGBTQ, slang) bottom (passive in role)

• passif

bottom m (plural bottons)

1. button (a badge worn on clothes)

• botão