bottom

• botton (dialectal)

From Middle English botme, botom, from Old English botm, bodan (“bottom, foundation; ground, abyss”), from Proto-West Germanic *butm, from Proto-Germanic *butmaz, *budmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn (“bottom”). Cognate with Dutch bodem, German Boden, Icelandic botn, Danish bund; also Irish bonn (“sole (of foot)”), Ancient Greek πυθμήν (puthmḗn, “bottom of a cup or jar”), Sanskrit बुध्न (budhna, “bottom”), Persian بن (bon, “bottom”), Latin fundus (“bottom”) (whence fund, via French). The sense “posterior of a person” 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/,

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ɒtəm
• Hyphenation: bot‧tom

bottom (countable and uncountable, plural bottoms)

1. The lowest part of anything.

   Synonym: base

   Antonym: top

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XIII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     barrels with the bottoms knocked out

   • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 19, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:

     a great ship’s kettle of iron, with the bottom knocked out

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     At the bottom of the staircase I stood and stared at the worn steps, and Ayesha, turning, saw me.

   • 1824, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], Tales of a Traveller, (please specify |part=1 to 4), Philadelphia, Pa.: H C Carey & I Lea, , →OCLC:

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

   Footers appear at the bottoms of pages.

   1. A garment worn to cover the body below the torso.

      Coordinate term: top

      There’s a hole in her pyjama bottoms.

   2. Spirits poured into a glass before adding soda water.

      a soda and a bottom of brandy

2. The far end of somewhere.

   There’s a fairy at the bottom of my garden.

   I walked to the bottom of the street.

3. (uncountable, British, slang) Character, reliability, staying power, dignity, integrity or sound judgment.

   lack bottom

4. (dated, uncountable) Power of endurance.
   • 2017, Les Savage, The Teton Bunch: A Western Trio:

     This was why Dee had always ridden a buckskin; a man following his kind of trails needed a horse with bottom, and a line-back like this one never wore out.

5. The base; the fundamental part; basic aspect.
   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     Thereupon Billali did a curious thing. Down he went, that venerable-looking old gentleman - for Billali is a gentleman at the bottom - down on to his hands and knees, and in this undignified position, with his long white beard trailing on the ground, he began to creep into the apartment beyond.

6. (now chiefly US) Low-lying land; a valley or hollow.

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

   • 1751, Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle , volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., , →OCLC:

     The horses staled in a small brook that runs in a bottom, betwixt two hills.

   • 1812, Amos Stoddard, Sketches of Louisiana:

     the bottoms and the high grounds

7. (usually: bottoms or bottomland) Low-lying land near a river with alluvial soil.
8. (euphemistic) The buttocks or anus.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:buttocks

   • 1986 April 10, Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes (comic):

     Calvin, if you shoot that paper clip at me, I'll get your bottom hauled to the principal's office so fast you'll think you were in a time warp!!

9. (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%.

10. The bed of a body of water, as of a river, lake, or sea.
11. An abyss.
    • 1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

      In the Carpathian Bottom makes abode / The Shepherd of the Seas, a Prophet and a God

12. (nautical) A cargo vessel, a ship.
    • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:

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

13. (nautical) Certain parts of a vessel, particularly the cargo hold or the portion of the ship that is always underwater.
    • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

      My ventures are not in one bottom trusted.

    • November 8, 1773, Bancroft, in Boston Post-Boy

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

14. (baseball) The second half of an inning, the home team's turn at bat.
15. (BDSM) A submissive partner in a sadomasochistic relationship.

    Synonyms: sub, submissive

    Coordinate terms: top, dom

    • 1981 August 15, Nancy Wechsler, Gayle Rubin, Pat Califia, “Sadomasochism: Fears, Facts, Fantasies”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 5, page 6:

      Since what I wanted to do was be a bottom, a masochist, I had to learn that you could do it and be safe, that you could do it and not sign your life away, that you could do it by agreement, and that it was still fun.

    1. (broadly, by extension) A submissive partner in a sexual relationship.
17. (slang) A person who has a receptive role or has a preference for that role during intercourse.

    Synonyms: catcher, pathic, (South Asia) zenana

    Hypernym: doee

    Coordinate term: top

    James and Lukas would make a great couple if they weren't both bottoms.

18. (particle physics) Ellipsis of bottom quark.

    Hypernym: flavor

20. A ball or skein of thread; a cocoon.
    • 1707, J Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. , London: J H for H Mortlock , and J Robinson , →OCLC:

      the worms will fasten themselves, and make their bottoms, which in about fourteen days are finished.

21. (heraldry, rare) A trundle or spindle of thread.
    • 1724, John Guillim, A Display of Heraldry, page 207:

      Edward Hoby of Bisham in Berkshire, Esq; Or, a Fess, Sable, between three Hobby-Hawks, proper; otherwise, Azure, three Bottoms in Fess, Gules.

    • 1866, Hugh Clark, An Introduction to Heraldry ... Eighteenth edition. Revised and corrected by J. R. Planché, page 99:

      BOTTOM, a trundle or quill of gold thread. See TRUNDLE. Argent three bottoms, in fess gules, the thread or; name, Hoby, of Badland.

    • 1873, Henry Sydney Grazebrook, The Heraldry of Worcestershire, page 285:

      [...] three “bottoms or clewes” (elsewhere called “spindles” or “fusils upon slippers”) in fesse gules threaded or, for Badlond;

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

• → Dutch: bottom
• → French: bottom

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

1. (transitive) To furnish (something) with a bottom.

   to bottom a chair

2. (transitive) To pour spirits into (a glass to be topped up with soda water).
   • 1866, “Dirge of the Drinker”, in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, page 645:

     We shall bid that thoughtful waiter place beside him, near and handy, / Large supplies of soda water, tumblers bottomed well with brandy, […]

3. (obsolete) To wind (like a ball of thread etc.).
   • c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     As you vnwinde her loue from him, / Lest it should rauel and be good to none, / You must prouide to bottome it on me.

4. (transitive) To establish or found (something) on or upon.
   • 1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. , London: J Dodsley, , →OCLC:

     But an absurd opinion concerning the king’s hereditary right to the crown does not prejudice one that is rational, and bottomed upon solid principles of law and policy.

   • 1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:

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

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

5. (transitive, chiefly in passive) To lie on the bottom of; to underlie, to lie beneath.
   • 1989, B Mukherjee, Jasmine:

     My first night in America was spent in a motel with plywood over its windows, its pool bottomed with garbage sacks.

6. (obsolete, intransitive) To be based or grounded.
   • 'c. 1703, John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman

     Find out upon what foundation any proposition advanced bottoms.

7. (mechanics, intransitive) To reach or strike against the bottom of something, so as to impede free action.
   • 1977, Roger W. Autor Bolz, Production Processes: The Productivity Handbook‎, page 12-81:

     allowance at the bottom of blind bores for the chamfered tip of the reamer will obviate additional operations with shouldering or bottoming reamers to completely finish the entire length of a hole.

8. (transitive) To reach the bottom of something.
   • 1902, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Bush Studies (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 21:

     Squeaker's dog sniffed and barked joyfully around them till his licking efforts to bottom a salmon tin sent him careering in a muzzled frenzy, that caused the younger woman's thick lips to part grinningly till he came too close.

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

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

10. (BDSM, intransitive) To be the submissive partner in a BDSM relationship.
11. (gay slang, intransitive) To be anally penetrated in gay sex.
    • 2023, Brandon Taylor, The Late Americans, Jonathan Cape, page 301:

      Daw hadn’t bottomed in a long time. He hadn’t had sex in a year.

    The only time I ever bottomed in my life, my sphincter was pierced.

bottom (not comparable)

1. The lowest or last place or position.

   Those files should go on the bottom shelf.

2. (transgender) Relating to the genitals.

   bottom dysphoria

   bottom surgery

• bottommost

Unadapted borrowing from English bottom. Doublet of bodem.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɔ.təm/

bottom m (plural bottoms, diminutive bottommetje n)

1. (LGBTQ and BDSM slang) bottom (passive or submissive role in sexual relations)

   Coordinate term: top

Borrowed from English bottom.

• IPA^(key): /bo.tɔm/

• Audio:

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bottom (plural bottoms)

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

   Synonym: passif

Unadapted borrowing from English bottom.

bottom (invariable, not comparable)

1. Only used in quark bottom

bottom m (plural bottons)

1. bottom quark (quark)

bottom

1. Alternative form of bothom

• Kathleen A. Browne (1927) The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth Series, Vol.17 No.2, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, page 135