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prettygoodwordbutte (BYOOT) - n., an isolated hill with steep or vertical sides and a relatively small and flat or roughly flat top.
Compare mesa, which has a similar shape but is larger in area. This is an Americanism, used specifically in the western United States -- which means I'm in butte country. It is, however, interestingly old for an Americanism, dating to the 1650s, from North American French, from French butte, knoll/mound, from Old French, archery target (called in modern English a butt, also used for the berm behind a shooting range), apparently feminine derivative of but, mark/goal, from either Frankish *but or Old Norse bútr, both meaning log/stump, apparently for using them in arms practice, then narrowed to specifically archery. The two Mitten Buttes in Monument Valley, Arizona:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
And that wraps up a week of shorts -- next week, it'll be longs.
---L.
Compare mesa, which has a similar shape but is larger in area. This is an Americanism, used specifically in the western United States -- which means I'm in butte country. It is, however, interestingly old for an Americanism, dating to the 1650s, from North American French, from French butte, knoll/mound, from Old French, archery target (called in modern English a butt, also used for the berm behind a shooting range), apparently feminine derivative of but, mark/goal, from either Frankish *but or Old Norse bútr, both meaning log/stump, apparently for using them in arms practice, then narrowed to specifically archery. The two Mitten Buttes in Monument Valley, Arizona:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
And that wraps up a week of shorts -- next week, it'll be longs.
---L.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-01 09:35 pm (UTC)Nope! I suspect it's a transference from the shape to the common attribute of that sort of outcrop of being isolated.