The Grammarphobia Blog: Is 'butt' short for 'buttock'?

The OED’s earliest US example for “butt” used to mean the hindquarters is from John Russell Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms (1859), which defines it this way: “The buttocks. The word is used in the West in such phrases as, ‘I fell on my butt,’ ‘He kick’d my butt.’ ”

Maybe butthole was a slang term in the late 1800s but it was only a spoken form for many decades after that until some intrepid pioneer had the audacity to put it in print.

[–] LocalMaxima@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yeah I searched to find an example in print. Most results were “but thoſe” mistranscribed. In the early 1900s I found butt hole used as a mining term (digging a butt hole in rock then stuffing it with explosives)

[–] InevitableSwing@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

digging a butt hole in rock then stuffing it with explosives

That sounds like a line in Loser that Beck sneaks in when he plays it live.