Bottom

How to spell bottom

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bottom

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bottom mean?

1. nounThe lowest part, surface, or point of something.
2. nounA person's buttocks; the part of the body one sits on.
3. adjectiveSituated at the lowest position or level.

Bottom in a sentence

• noun

  The keys had slipped to the bottom of her bag.

• noun

  The toddler landed on his bottom after the gentle fall.

• adjective

  The spare blankets are kept in the bottom drawer.

• noun

  Divers found the wreck resting on the bottom of the lake.

• noun

  Hours at the desk left a dull ache in her bottom.

• adjective

  Their team finished in the bottom half of the table.

Where does bottom come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Bottom comes straight from the Old English word botm, which meant the ground, the foundation, or the lowest part of something. It belongs to a wide Germanic family: related forms appear in Old Norse botn, Dutch bodem, and German Boden, all pointing back to a shared ancestor meaning a base or floor. Linguists trace this further to an Indo-European root that also fed Latin fundus (source of 'foundation' and 'fund') and Greek pythmen, both naming the bottom of a vessel or pit. The sense of 'buttocks' is a much later, gentler everyday use that grew up alongside the literal 'lowest part' meaning. The doubled t in modern spelling reflects the short vowel before it, and is the small detail worth fixing in memory, since the word otherwise sounds quite simple.

How the word is built

• bottom (from Old English botm: ground, foundation, lowest part)