From Middle English botme, botom, from Old English botm, bodan ("bottom, foundation; ground, abyss"), from Proto-West Germanic *butm, from Proto-Germanic *butmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn.

• (RP) IPA: /ˈbɒtəm/
• (America) IPA: /ˈbɑtəm/

bottom

1. The lowest part of anything.
   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 13, 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.

   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[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.

6. (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

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

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:buttocks

9. (often, figuratively) The lowest part of a container.
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[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.

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

    Synonyms: catcher, pathic

    Antonyms: top

17. (particle physics) Ellipsis of bottom quark.

    Hypernyms: flavor

18. 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.

19. (heraldry, rare) A trundle or spindle of thread.
20. (obsolete) Dregs or grounds; lees; sediment.

• (lowest part) base
• (buttocks, British, euphemistic) sit upon, derriere, 🍑
• (LGBT) catcher
• (BDSM) sub, submissive

• (antonym(s) of “lowest part”): top
• (antonym(s) of “BDSM”): top, dom
• (antonym(s) of “LGBT”): top

• French: fond, bas, dessous
• German: Boden, Grund, Unterseite
• Italian: fondo, parte inferiore
• 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; simple past and past participle bottomed)

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

   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.). [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.

4. (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.

5. (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.

6. (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.

7. (mechanics, intransitive) To reach or strike against the bottom of something, so as to impede free action. [from 19th c.]
8. (transitive) To reach the bottom of something.
9. To fall to the lowest point. [from 19th c.]
10. (BDSM, intransitive) To be the submissive partner in a BDSM relationship. [from 20th c.]
11. (gay slang, intransitive) To be anally penetrated in gay sex. [from 20th c.]

    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

• As an English surname, from the noun bottom.
• As a French - name, mistranslated from Lafond, in which Old French la fond is confused with modern le fond.

1. Surname.