butte

See also: Butte and butté

English

Buttes in Monument Valley

Etymology

PIE word
*bʰudʰmḗn

Borrowed from French butte (“mound”). Related to butt via a West Germanic cognate.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbjuːt/
• (Southern US) IPA^(key): /ˈbʌt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːt
• Homophone: beaut

Noun

butte (plural buttes)

1. (US) An isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top.

   Coordinate term: mesa

   • 2013 November 27, John Grotzinger, “The world of Mars”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Those multitoned buttes and mesas [of the Grand Canyon], and that incandescent sequence of colorful bands that make one of the natural wonders of the world so grand, can also be found over 100 million miles away [on Mars].

Derived terms

• Box Butte County
• Butte County
• Butte Creek
• Butte Creek Canyon
• Butte Falls
• Butte Meadows
• Butte Valley
• Crested Butte
• Hart Butte
• Mount Crested Butte
• Nipple Butte

 

Translations

hill

• Arabic: شاهد صخري
• Azerbaijani: qalıq
• Catalan: mola (ca) f
• Danish: butte (da) c
• Finnish: butte (fi)
• French: butte (fr) f
• German: Härtling (de) m
• Irish: buta m
• Italian: butte f, tacco (it) m
• Kabuverdianu: rubon
• Navajo: dah azką́
• Portuguese: planalto (pt) m
• Russian: холм с крутыми склонами (xolm s krutymi sklonami), остане́ц (ru) m (ostanéc)
• Sardinian: tacchixeddu m, taccu m
• Spanish: cuello volcánico m, otero (es) m, páramo (es) m
• Thai: เนินยอดป้าน
• Turkish: tanık tepe (tr)

Further reading

• butte on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Danish

Adjective

butte

1. definite of but
2. plural of but

French

Etymology

Feminine form of but (“aim, target”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /byt/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

butte f (plural buttes)

1. small hill, mound, hillock; knoll

   Synonyms: colline, tertre, motte

2. heap

   Faire une butte autour des plantes de pomme de terre.

   Make a heap around the potato plants.

3. (archery) a mound of dirt upon which targets were placed to practice shooting
4. (by extension, figurative) butt, target

Derived terms

• buttereau
• être en butte
• butter

Descendants

• → English: butte

Further reading

• “butte”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Latin

Noun

butte

1. ablative singular of buttis

Middle English

Etymology

From Old English byt, bytt (“small piece of land”) and *butt (attested in diminutive Old English buttuc (“end, small piece of land”) > English buttock), from Proto-West Germanic *butt, from Proto-Germanic *buttaz (“end, piece”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /but/

Noun

butte (plural buttes)

1. butt

Descendants

• English: butt
• Yola: butts (plural)

References

• “butte, n.⁴”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Norwegian Bokmål

Adjective

butte

1. definite singular of butt
2. plural of butt

Norwegian Nynorsk

Adjective

butte

1. definite singular of butt
2. plural of butt