Pronunciations (8)
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/ˈbɒt.əm/
Pronunciation notes
- Received-Pronunciation
-
/ˈbɑ.təm/
Pronunciation notes
- Atlantic-Canada
- General-American
-
[ˈbɑ.ɾəm]
Pronunciation notes
- Atlantic-Canada
- General-American
-
/ˈbɒt.əm/
Pronunciation notes
- Canada
- dialectal
-
/ˈbɔt.əm/
Pronunciation notes
- Australia
-
[ˈbɔ̟t.əm]
Pronunciation notes
- New-Zealand
-
ˈbɒtəm
Pronunciation notes
- GB
-
ˈbɑtəm
Pronunciation notes
- US
Noun
The lowest part of anything.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Synonyms
- Antonyms
- Examples
-
barrels with the bottoms knocked out
a great ship’s kettle of iron, with the bottom knocked out
More examples (3)
At the bottom of the staircase I stood and stared at the worn steps, and Ayesha, turning, saw me.
No two chairs were alike; such high backs and low backs and leather bottoms and worsted bottoms.
Footers appear at the bottoms of pages.
The lowest part of anything. The lowest or last position in a rank.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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The Red Sox are at the bottom again.
The lowest part of anything. A garment worn to cover the body below the torso.
Usage- Countable
- often
- plural
- Uncountable
- Examples
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There’s a hole in her pyjama bottoms.
The lowest part of anything. The lowest part of a container.
Usage- Countable
- Figurative
- often
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
More examples (1)
In Ireland, where 14.5% of the population are jobless, emigration has climbed steadily since 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed and the bottom fell out of the Irish housing market. In the 12 months to April this year, 40,200 Irish passport-holders left, up from 27,700 the previous year, according to the central statistics office. Irish nationals were by far the largest constituent group among emigrants, at almost 53%.
The lowest part of anything. Spirits poured into a glass before adding soda water.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
The lowest part of anything. The second half of an inning, the home team's turn at bat.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, two outs
The lowest part of anything. The bass or baritone instruments of a band.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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a soda and a bottom of brandy
The lowest part of anything. The working portion of a moldboard-style plow.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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single-bottom plow
three-bottom plow
The remotest or innermost part of something.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Synonyms
- Examples
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Near-synonym: fundus (anatomical)
There’s a fairy at the bottom of my garden.
More examples (2)
I walked to the bottom of the street.
There was a pit in the bottom of my stomach.
The fundamental part; a basic aspect.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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get to the bottom of it
More examples (1)
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.
Low-lying land; a valley or hollow.
Usage- US usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
Where shall we go for a walk? How about Ashcombe Bottom?
The horses staled in a small brook that runs in a bottom, betwixt two hills.
More examples (1)
the bottoms and the high grounds
Low-lying land near a river with alluvial soil.
Usage- Countable
- plural-normally
- Uncountable
The buttocks or anus.
Usage- Countable
- euphemistic
- Uncountable
- Examples
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Calvin, if you shoot that paper clip at me, I'll get your bottom hauled to the principal's office so fast you'll think you were in a time warp!!
The bed of a body of water.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Synonyms
An abyss.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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In the Carpathian Bottom makes abode / The Shepherd of the Seas, a Prophet and a God
A cargo vessel, a ship.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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We sail in leaky bottoms and on great and perilous waters; [...]
Certain parts of a vessel, particularly the cargo hold or the portion of the ship that is always underwater.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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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.
A person who has a receptive role or has a preference for that role during intercourse.
Usage- Countable
- Slang
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
James and Lukas would make a great couple if they weren't both bottoms.
A person who has a receptive role or has a preference for that role during intercourse. A sexual submissive.
Usage- broadly
- Colloquial
- Countable
- Slang
- Synonyms
- Examples
-
More examples (1)
Since what I wanted to do was be a bottom, a masochist, I had to learn that you could do it and be safe, that you could do it and not sign your life away, that you could do it by agreement, and that it was still fun.
Character, reliability, staying power, dignity, integrity or sound judgment.
Usage- UK usage
- Slang
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
lack bottom
Power of endurance.
Usage- Dated
- Uncountable
- Examples
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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.
A ball or skein of thread; a cocoon.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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the [silk]worms will fasten themselves, and make their bottoms, which in about fourteen days are finished.
A trundle or spindle of thread.
Usage- Countable
- Rare
- Uncountable
- Examples
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Edward Hoby of Bisham in Berkshire, Esq; Or, a Fess, Sable, between three Hobby-Hawks, proper; otherwise, Azure, three Bottoms in Fess, Gules.
BOTTOM, a trundle or quill of gold thread. See TRUNDLE. Argent three bottoms, in fess gules, the thread or; name, Hoby, of Badland.
More examples (1)
[...] three “bottoms or clewes” (elsewhere called “spindles” or “fusils upon slippers”) in fesse gules threaded or, for Badlond;
Dregs or grounds; lees; sediment.
Usage- Countable
- Obsolete
- Uncountable
Verb
To furnish (something) with a bottom.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
-
to bottom a chair
To pour spirits into (a glass to be topped up with soda water).
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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We shall bid that thoughtful waiter place beside him, near and handy, / Large supplies of soda water, tumblers bottomed well with brandy, […]
To wind (like a ball of thread etc.).
Usage- Obsolete
- Examples
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As you vnwinde her loue from him, / Lest it should rauel and be good to none, / You must prouide to bottome it on me.
To establish or found (something) on or upon.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
-
More examples (1)
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
Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that the President must obey outstanding executive orders, even when bottomed on the Constitution, until they are revoked.
To lie on the bottom of; to underlie, to lie beneath.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
-
My first night in America was spent in a motel with plywood over its windows, its pool bottomed with garbage sacks.
To be based or grounded.
Usage- Intransitive
- Obsolete
- Examples
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c. 1703, John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman Find out upon what foundation any proposition advanced bottoms.
To reach or strike against the bottom of something, so as to impede free action.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
-
More examples (1)
allowance at the bottom of blind bores for the chamfered tip of the reamer will obviate additional operations with shouldering or bottoming reamers to completely finish the entire length of a hole.
To reach the bottom of something.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
-
More examples (1)
Squeaker's dog sniffed and barked joyfully around them till his licking efforts to bottom a salmon tin sent him careering in a muzzled frenzy, that caused the younger woman's thick lips to part grinningly till he came too close.
To fall to the lowest point.
- Examples
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed on September 24, 2001. The CRB Index bottomed on October 24.
To be the submissive partner in a BDSM relationship.
Usage- Dated
- Intransitive
To take on the receptive role during intercourse.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
-
I've never bottomed in my life.
Daw hadn’t bottomed in a long time. He hadn’t had sex in a year.
Adjective
The lowest or last place or position.
Usage- not-comparable
- Examples
-
Those files should go on the bottom shelf.
Relating to the genitals.
Usage- not-comparable
- Examples
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bottom dysphoria
bottom surgery
Adjective
situated at the bottom or lowest position
- Examples
-
the bottom drawer
the lowest rank
- Examples
-
bottom member of the class
Noun
the lower side of anything
- Synonyms
the lowest part of anything
- Examples
-
they started at the bottom of the hill
the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
he deserves a good kick in the butt
are you going to sit on your fanny and do nothing?
the second half of an inning; while the home team is at bat
- Synonyms
- Antonyms
a depression forming the ground under a body of water
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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he searched for treasure on the ocean bed
low-lying alluvial land near a river
- Synonyms
a cargo ship
- Broader terms
- Examples
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they did much of their overseas trade in foreign bottoms
Verb
provide with a bottom or a seat
- Examples
-
bottom the chairs
strike the ground, as with a ship's bottom
- Broader terms
come to understand
- Broader terms