butte

[prettygoodword]

butte (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.

Comments

[feast_of_regrets]

Very interesting. I had no idea it was a specific formation. Probably because I always think of Crested Butte, which is decidedly not a butte, it would seem. (I'd say that's what they mean by "crested" but even without the peak it would be more of a mesa to my mind.)

(Also Wikimedia)

[prettygoodword]

FWIW, Wikipedia's article on buttes notes that "The term butte is sometimes applied more broadly to isolated, steep-sided hills with pointed or craggy, rather than flat, tops" and cites Crested Butte along with Elephant Butte, NM, as notable examples.

[feast_of_regrets]

Ah, but of course. English would not borrow a word and then confine it to just one kind of mountain. LOL.

[prettygoodword]

Nope! I suspect it's a transference from the shape to the common attribute of that sort of outcrop of being isolated.