bottom

Etymology

PIE word *bʰudʰmḗn From Middle English botme, botom, from Old English botm, bodan (“bottom, foundation; ground, abyss”), 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.

noun

1. The lowest part of anything.
   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, Britain, slang) Character, reliability, staying power, dignity, integrity or sound judgment.
   lack bottom
4. (dated, uncountable) Power of endurance.
   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. 2017, Les Savage, The Teton Bunch: A Western Trio
5. The base; the fundamental part; basic aspect.
6. (now chiefly US) Low-lying land; a valley or hollow.
   Where shall we go for a walk? How about Ashcombe Bottom?
   the bottoms and the high grounds 1812, Amos Stoddard, Sketches of Louisiana
7. (usually: bottoms or bottomland) Low-lying land near a river with alluvial soil.
8. (euphemistic) The buttocks or anus.
   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!! Apr 10 1986, Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes (comic)
9. (often figurative) The lowest part of a container.
   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%. December 21, 2011, Helen Pidd, “Europeans migrate south as continent drifts deeper into crisis”, in the Guardian
10. The bed of a body of water, as of a river, lake, or sea.
11. An abyss.
12. (nautical) A cargo vessel, a ship.
    We sail in leaky bottoms and on great and perilous waters; … 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque
13. (nautical) Certain parts of a vessel, particularly the cargo hold or the portion of the ship that is always underwater.
    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.
14. (baseball) The second half of an inning, the home team's turn at bat.
15. (BDSM) A submissive in sadomasochistic sexual activity.
16. (LGBT slang) A man, trans woman, or other person with a penis, who prefers the receptive role in anal sex.
    James and Lukas would make a great couple if they weren't both bottoms.
17. (particle physics) Ellipsis of bottom quark.
18. A ball or skein of thread; a cocoon.
19. (heraldry, rare) A trundle or spindle of thread.
    Edward Hoby of Bisham in Berkshire, Esq; Or, a Fess, Sable, between three Hobby-Hawks, proper; otherwise, Azure, three Bottoms in Fess, Gules. 1724, John Guillim, A Display of Heraldry, page 207
    BOTTOM, a trundle or quill of gold thread. See TRUNDLE. Argent three bottoms, in fess gules, the thread or; name, Hoby, of Badland. 1866, Hugh Clark, An Introduction to Heraldry ... Eighteenth edition. Revised and corrected by J. R. Planché, page 99
    … three “bottoms or clewes” (elsewhere called “spindles” or “fusils upon slippers”) in fesse gules threaded or, for Badlond; 1873, Henry Sydney Grazebrook, The Heraldry of Worcestershire, page 285
20. (obsolete) Dregs or grounds; lees; sediment.

verb

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).
   We shall bid that thoughtful waiter place beside him, near and handy, / Large supplies of soda water, tumblers bottomed well with brandy, […] Dirge of the Drinker, in 1866, The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art (page 645)
3. (obsolete) To wind (like a ball of thread etc.).
4. (transitive) To establish or found (something) on or upon.
   Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that the President must obey outstanding executive orders, even when bottomed on the Constitution, until they are revoked. 2001, United States Congress House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Executive Orders and Presidential Directives, p.59
5. (transitive, chiefly in passive) To lie on the bottom of; to underlie, to lie beneath.
   My first night in America was spent in a motel with plywood over its windows, its pool bottomed with garbage sacks. 1989, B Mukherjee, Jasmine
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.
8. (transitive) To reach the bottom of something.
   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. 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
9. To fall to the lowest point.
   The Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed on September 24, 2001. The CRB Index bottomed on October 24. 2004, John J. Murphy, Intermarket Analysis: Profiting from Global Market Relationships, page 119
10. (BDSM, intransitive) To be the submissive partner in a BDSM relationship.
11. (gay slang, intransitive) To be anally penetrated in gay sex.
    The only time I ever bottomed in my life, my sphincter was pierced.

adj

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