bottom
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈbɒ.təm/
ipa: /ˈbɑ.təm/
ipa: [ˈbɑɾəm]
ipa: /ˈbɔ.təm/
rhymes: -ɒtəm
Forms: form: bottoms
form: bottoming
form: bottomed
form: bottomed
form: botton
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 first attested in 1794; the verb “to reach the bottom of” is first attested in 1808. bottom dollar (“the last dollar one has”) is from 1882.
Senses: examples: text: to bottom a chair
glosses: To furnish (something) with a bottom.
examples: text: We shall bid that thoughtful waiter place beside him, near and handy, / Large supplies of soda water, tumblers bottomed well with brandy, […]
ref: 1866, “Dirge of the Drinker”, in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, page 645:
glosses: To pour spirits into (a glass to be topped up with soda water).
examples: text: As you vnwinde her loue from him, / Lest it should rauel and be good to none, / You must prouide to bottome it on me.
ref: 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]:
glosses: To wind (like a ball of thread etc.).
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: those false and deceiving grounds upon which many bottom their eternal state
ref: 1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:
text: Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that the President must obey outstanding executive orders, even when bottomed on the Constitution, until they are revoked.
ref: 2001, United States Congress House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Executive Orders and Presidential Directives, p.59
glosses: To establish or found (something) on or upon.
examples: text: My first night in America was spent in a motel with plywood over its windows, its pool bottomed with garbage sacks.
ref: 1989, B Mukherjee, Jasmine:
qualifier: chiefly passive voice
glosses: To lie on the bottom of; to underlie, to lie beneath.
examples: c. 1703, John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman
Find out upon what foundation any proposition advanced bottoms'.
glosses: To be based or grounded.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1977, Roger W. Autor Bolz, Production Processes: The Productivity Handbook, page 12-81:
topics: engineering
mechanical-engineering
mechanics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
glosses: To reach or strike against the bottom of something, so as to impede free action.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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:
glosses: To reach the bottom of something.
examples: text: The Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed on September 24, 2001. The CRB Index bottomed on October 24.
ref: 2004, John J. Murphy, Intermarket Analysis: Profiting from Global Market Relationships, page 119:
glosses: To fall to the lowest point.
topics: BDSM
lifestyle
sexuality
glosses: To be the submissive partner in a BDSM relationship.
examples: text: I've never bottomed in my life.
text: Daw hadn’t bottomed in a long time. He hadn’t had sex in a year.
ref: 2023, Brandon Taylor, The Late Americans, Jonathan Cape, page 301:
topics: LGBT
glosses: To be anally penetrated in gay sex.
Derived terms: bottom for
bottom out
rebottom