# bottom
## English
### Alternative forms

* botton (dialectal)

### Etymology

* PIE word
* *bʰudʰmḗn
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.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈbɒtəm/
* (General American) IPA: /ˈbɑtəm/, [ˈbɑɾəm]
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɒtəm
* Hyphenation: bot‧tom

### Noun

bottom (countable and uncountable, plural bottoms)
* 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[enry] 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[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] 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.
** A garment worn to cover the body below the torso.
    Coordinate term: top
    There’s a hole in her pyjama bottoms.
** Spirits poured into a glass before adding soda water.
    a soda and a bottom of brandy
* The far end of somewhere.
    There’s a fairy at the bottom of my garden.
    I walked to the bottom of the street.
* (uncountable, British, slang) Character, reliability, staying power, dignity, integrity or sound judgment.
    lack bottom
* (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.
* The base; the fundamental part; basic aspect.
** 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] 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.
* (now chiefly US) Low-lying land; a valley or hollow.
    Where shall we go for a walk? How about Ashcombe Bottom?
** 1751, [Tobias] 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
* (usually: bottoms or bottomland) Low-lying land near a river with alluvial soil.
* (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!!
* (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%.
* The bed of a body of water, as of a river, lake, or sea.
* 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
* (nautical) A cargo vessel, a ship.
** 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:We sail in leaky bottoms and on great and perilous waters; [...]
* (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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:My ventures are not in one bottom trusted.
** November 8, 1773, [first name not given] 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.
* (baseball) The second half of an inning, the home team's turn at bat.
* (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.
** (loosely, by extension) A submissive partner in a sexual relationship.
* (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.
* (particle physics) Ellipsis of bottom quark.
    Hypernym: flavor
* A ball or skein of thread; a cocoon.
** 1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC:the [silk]worms will fasten themselves, and make their bottoms, which in about fourteen days are finished.
* (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;
* (obsolete) Dregs or grounds; lees; sediment.

#### Hyponyms

* power bottom
* rock bottom

#### Derived terms

* ambulance at the bottom of a cliff
* antibottom
* anti-bottom quark
* artichoke bottom
* at bottom
* at the bottom of
* at the bottom of the pile
* bell-bottom
* bell-bottom trousers
* bet one's bottom dollar
* bikini bottom
* black bottom
* Black Bottom
* black bottom pie
* bot
* bottom ag
* bottom age
* bottom-age
* bottom-aged
* bottom antiquark
* bottom bitch
* bottom bracket
* bottom burp
* bottom dead center
* bottom dog
* bottom dollar
* bottom drawer
* bottom drawer syndrome
* bottom-dwelling
* bottom edge
* bottom-end
* bottomer
* bottom fall out
* bottom feeder
* bottom-feeder
* bottom feeding
* bottom fermentation
* bottom-fishing
* bottom fishing
* bottomful
* bottom gear
* bottom girl
* bottom growth
* bottom hand
* bottom-hat transform
* bottom heat
* bottomhood
* bottom kill
* bottomland
* bottomless
* bottom line
* bottom liner
* bottom man
* bottom-most
* bottomness
* bottom of the barrel
* bottom of the harbour
* bottom of the hour
* bottom of the line
* bottom of the ninth
* bottom of the sea
* bottom of the table
* bottom on
* bottomonium
* bottom order
* bottom out
* bottom pair
* bottom-post
* bottom-poster
* bottom power
* bottom quark
* bottomry
* bottom sheet
* bottom-shelf
* bottoms up
* bottoms up squat
* bottom the house
* bottom time
* bottom type
* bottom-up
* bottom-upwards
* bottomward
* bottomwards
* bottomwear
* bottom woman
* bottomy
* bottonium
* cauldron bottom
* crawl-a-bottom
* deasphalter bottoms
* dyke bottom
* false bottom
* fidget-bottom
* flat-bottom
* flog-bottomist
* Foggy Bottom
* from the bottom of one's heart
* from top to bottom
* front bottom
* get to the bottom of
* glass-bottom boat
* Hackney Bottom
* hardbottom
* hit bottom
* in the bottom of the bag
* Ironbottom Sound
* kettle bottom
* kick up the bottom
* like the bottom of a birdcage
* Lulsgate Bottom
* oven bottom
* piggin bottoms
* power bottom
* put the bottom rail on top
* race to the bottom
* river bottom
* rock-bottom
* saggar maker's bottom knocker
* salt bottom
* sbottom
* sbottom squark
* scrape the bottom of the barrel
* seabottom
* Six Mile Bottom
* smooth as a baby's bottom
* soft as a baby's bottom
* softbottom
* stand on one's own bottom
* subbottom
* sulfur-bottom
* sulfur-bottom whale
* sulphur-bottom
* sulphur bottom whale
* sulphur-bottom whale
* top from the bottom
* tops-and-bottoms
* top-to-bottom
* top to bottom
* touch bottom
* unbottom
* unbottomed
* underbottom
* Westley Bottom
* wind up one's bottoms

#### Descendants

* → Dutch: bottom
* → French: bottom

#### Translations

Armenian: հետույք (hy) (hetuykʻ)
Aromanian: cur m
Basque: ipurdi
Breton: revr (br)
Bulgarian: задник (bg) m (zadnik)
Catalan: cul (ca) m
Cornish: pedren f
Dutch: bil (nl)
Egyptian: (ꜥrt f)
Esperanto: pugo (eo)
Estonian: tagumik, istmik, taguots, tagument, ahter (et), pepu (et)
Finnish: takapuoli (fi), takamus (fi), peppu (fi), pylly (fi), perä (fi), peffa (fi), pehva (fi), takalisto (fi)
French: arrière-train (fr) m, cul (fr) m, derrière (fr) m, popotin (fr) m, potron m, séant (fr) m
Friulian: cûl m
Galician: cu (gl) m, traseiro m
Greek: πισινός (el) (pisinós)
Hebrew: תחת (he) (takhat), ישבן (he) m
Hindi: नितंब (hi) m (nitamb), पिछवाड़ा (hi) m (pichvāṛā), चूतड़ (hi) m (cūtaṛ)
Italian: sedere (it) m
Korean: (for buttocks) 궁둥이 (ko) (gungdung'i), (for anus) 똥구멍 (ko) (ttonggumeong)
Latin: culus (la) m
Macedonian: за́дник m (zádnik), газ (mk) m (gaz)
Malay: please add this translation if you can
Maori: kumu, kōtore
Polish: zadek (pl) m, tyłek (pl) m
Portuguese: cu (pt) m, fundilho (pt) m
Romanian: cur (ro) n, fund (ro), șezut (ro), dos (ro)
Russian: зад (ru) m (zad), по́па (ru) f (pópa)
Sami:
Inari: pottâ
Northern: čurti, bahta
Skolt: põtt
Southern: ravve, råvve
Scottish Gaelic: màs m, tòn f
Serbo-Croatian: zadnjica (sh) f, tur (sh) m
Slovak: zadok
Spanish: culo (es) m
Swedish: bak (sv) c, ända (sv) c, rumpa (sv) c, stjärt (sv) c
Welsh: rhefr, pen-ôl m :
    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Verb

bottom (third-person singular simple present bottoms, present participle bottoming, simple past and past participle bottomed)
* (transitive) To furnish (something) with a bottom. [from 16th c.]
    to bottom a chair
* (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, […]
* (obsolete) To wind (like a ball of thread etc.). [17th c.]
** 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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:As you vnwinde her loue from him, / Lest it should rauel and be good to none, / You must prouide to bottome it on me.
* (transitive) To establish or found (something) on or upon. [from 17th c.]
** 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[ames] 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.
* (transitive, chiefly in passive) To lie on the bottom of; to underlie, to lie beneath. [from 18th c.]
** 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.
* (obsolete, intransitive) To be based or grounded. [17th–19th c.]
** 'c. 1703, John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman
    Find out upon what foundation any proposition advanced bottoms.
* (mechanics, intransitive) To reach or strike against the bottom of something, so as to impede free action. [from 19th c.]
** 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.
* (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.
* To fall to the lowest point. [from 19th c.]
** 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.
* (BDSM, intransitive) To be the submissive partner in a BDSM relationship. [from 20th c.]
* (gay slang, intransitive) To be anally penetrated in gay sex. [from 20th c.]
** 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.
    I've never bottomed in my life.

#### Derived terms

* bottom for
* bottom out
* rebottom

#### Translations
### Adjective

bottom (not comparable)
* The lowest or last place or position.
    Those files should go on the bottom shelf.
* (transgender) Relating to the genitals.
    bottom dysphoria
    bottom surgery

#### Derived terms

* bottom dysphoria
* bottom surgeon
* bottom surgery

#### See also

* bottommost

## Dutch
### Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English bottom. Doublet of bodem.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbɔ.təm/

### Noun

bottom m (plural bottoms, diminutive bottommetje n)
* (LGBTQ and BDSM slang) bottom (passive or submissive role in sexual relations)
    Coordinate term: top

## French
### Etymology

Borrowed from English bottom.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /bo.tɔm/
* Audio:(file)

### Adjective

bottom (plural bottoms)
* (LGBTQ, slang) bottom (passive in role)
    Synonym: passif

## Portuguese
### Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English bottom.

### Adjective

bottom (invariable, not comparable)
* Only used in quark bottom

### Noun

bottom m (plural bottons)
* bottom quark (quark)

## Yola
### Noun

bottom
* Alternative form of bothom

### References

* 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