• (RP) IPA: /ˈbɒtəm/
• (America) IPA: /ˈbɑtəm/, [ˈbɑɾəm]

bottom

1. The lowest part of anything.
   • 18, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 13, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify ), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, OCLC 1069526323 ↗:

   • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, chapter 19

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

   • 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 below the torso (as opposed to the top)

      There's a hole in her pyjama bottoms.

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

   lack bottom

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

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

   • 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.
   • c. 1596–1598, William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     My ventures are not in one bottom trusted.

   • 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 person with a preference for being penetrated during sexual intercourse.
10. (physics) A bottom quark.
11. (often, figuratively) The lowest part of a container.
12. A ball or skein of thread; a cocoon.

    • 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.
15. (obsolete) Power of endurance.

    a horse of a good bottom

16. (obsolete) Dregs or grounds; lees; sediment.
17. (usually: bottoms or bottomland) Low-lying land near a river with alluvial soil.

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

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

• French: fond, bas, dessous
• German: Boden, Grund, Unterseite
• Italian: fondo, ^{(please verify)} parte#Italian|parte inferiore f attention it
• Portuguese: fundo
• Russian: дно
• Spanish: fondo

• French: arrière-train, cul, derrière, popotin, potron, séant
• Italian: sedere
• Portuguese: cu, fundilho
• Russian: зад
• Spanish: culo

• French: passif, enculé
• German: passiv
• Italian: passivo
• Portuguese: passivo
• Russian: пасси́в
• Spanish: pasivo

• Spanish: fondo

bottom (bottoms, present participle bottoming; past and past participle bottomed)

1. (transitive) To furnish (something) with a bottom. [from 16th c.]

   to bottom a chair

2. (obsolete) To wind (like a ball of thread etc.). [17th c.]
   • 1623, William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, First Folio, III.2:

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

3. (transitive) To establish or found (something) on or upon. [from 17th c.]
   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Oxford 2009, p. 26:

     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.

   • 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.

4. (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.

5. (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.

6. (mechanics, intransitive) To reach or strike against the bottom of something, so as to impede free action. [from 19th c.]
7. To fall to the lowest point. [from 19th c.]
8. (intransitive) To be the more passive or receiving partner in a sexual act or relationship; to be submissive in a BDSM relationship; to be anally penetrated in gay sex. [from 20th c.]

   I've never bottomed in my life.

bottom (not comparable)

1. The lowest or last place or position.

   Those files should go on the bottom shelf.

1. Surname