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butt shaft
Oct. 18th, 2022 07:33 ambutt shaft (BUT SHAFT) - n., a blunt or barbless arrow.
Used for target practice, when you are shooting at the butts -- it's this sense of butt (from Middle English butte, target, from Old French, from but, goal/target/end, of Germanic origin) that gives us the short form for buttocks (that end part), as opposed to butting into someone's business (totally different origin) or to bump against as in abutt (again, totally different origin) or a size of cask (yet another different origin). The shaft part, of course, comes from the shaft of the arrow.
Now, I did say these were not actually dirty words, but one of the first written uses of this one is by Shakespeare, who uses it to make a dirty joke in Love's Labors Lost -- so, yeah.
---L.
Used for target practice, when you are shooting at the butts -- it's this sense of butt (from Middle English butte, target, from Old French, from but, goal/target/end, of Germanic origin) that gives us the short form for buttocks (that end part), as opposed to butting into someone's business (totally different origin) or to bump against as in abutt (again, totally different origin) or a size of cask (yet another different origin). The shaft part, of course, comes from the shaft of the arrow.
Now, I did say these were not actually dirty words, but one of the first written uses of this one is by Shakespeare, who uses it to make a dirty joke in Love's Labors Lost -- so, yeah.
---L.
